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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



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ir)^ LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. <^i 



._ 9—165 ___ 



THE 



SCIENCE OF THE BIBLE 



BY 



/ 



REV. MARTIN S. BRENNAN,A.M. 

W 

Pastor of St. Lawrence O'Toole's Church, St. Louis, Mo., Professor of 

Astronomy and Geology in Kenrish Seminary, Member of St. Louis 

Academy of Sciences, A.S.P,, B.A.A., Author of Electricity 

and its Discoveries, What Catholics have done for 

Science and Astronomy, New and Old. 




St. Louis, Mo., 1898. 

Published by B. HERDER 

17 South Broadway. 




TWO COPIES RECEIVED 






Nihil Okstat. 

F. G. HOLWERK, 

Censor Librortwt. 



Imprimatur, 

H. MUEHLSIEPEN, V. G., 
Adm, 

St. Louis, Mo., Sept, 24, 1897. 



Copyright, 1898, by Jos. Gumi^iersbach. 



-BECKTOLD — 

PRINTING AND BOOK MFG. CO. 
ST. LOUIS, MO, 



CONTENTS. 



CHAFTER. 



PAGE. 



I. Moses Q 

II. The Pentateuch ^^ I 

III. Inspiration rg 

IV. Some Difficulties Solved 6^ 

V. The Higher Criticism 74 

VI. The Creation g^ 

VII. Moses and Laplace. 102 

VIII. Providence in the World 124 

IX. Astronomy of the Bible • . icy 

X. Optics of the Bible 181 " 

XL Results of Geology (Agencies of Structure) 194 

XII. Results of Geology (Present Structure) 215 

XIII. Results of Geology (Fossils) 226 

XIV. Results of Geology (Testimony of the Fossils) 238 

XV. Results of Biology (Principles) 252 

XVI. Results of Biology (Spontaneous Generation ?) 265 

XVII. Results of Biology (Transmutation of Species ?) 277 

XVIII. Results of Anthropology (The Human Species). . . . 299 
XIX. Results of Anthropology (Man not of Simian Descent. 315 

XX. Results of Anthropology (Origin of Races). 328 

XXL Antiquity of Man 346 

XXII. Antiquity of Man (con.) 357 

XXIIL The Deluge 371 



(3) 



PREFACE. 




<HESE pages aim to give an honest presen- 
tation of the branches of science touched 
upon in the Sacred Scriptures as compared 
with the same branches studied from a 
purely natural or secular standpoint. Astronom}^, 
Optics, Geology, Biolog}^, and Anthropology, in 
many portions of the Bible stand out in clear promi- 
nence, therefore these branches will form the subject 
matter of my comparative study. The fair minded 
reader wnll, I think, be convinced that no well estab- 
lished fact or principle of science is contradictory to 
any passage of the Bible properly and honestly in- 
terpreted. 

There is no bending of science to suit the script- 
ural text. The teachings of science drawn from the 
latest and most correct sources are put dowm inde- 
pendentl}^ of any ulterior motive. The passages of 
Scripture said to contradict science are then taken 
up, and the apparent conflict is harmonized. 

Science has undoubtedly made transcendent prog- 
ress within recent years. This progress is due in 
great measure to the continual changes occasioned 
by the rapid frequency of new discoveries. Indeed 
there is no feature of science as extraordinary as its 
changeableness. 

The science of twenty years ago is to-day almost 
obsolete. Every new discovery puts in hazard or 

greatly modifies some old favorite theory. The 

(5) 



— 6 — 

science text-books of our ^^outhful da3^s would be 
much more harmful than helpful in the hands of the 
pupils of to-day. 

Under such circumstances is it not strange indeed 
to see the arrogance with which many so-called sci- 
entists condemn everything that stands in the way 
of their ephemeral theories? The holiest convic- 
tions and most sacred and best established traditions 
of the race must vanish at the touch of these sciolists. 

However, it can be truthfully stated that it is 
only the braggadocios and tyros of science that are 
so presumptuous. Or to be more precise, this arro- 
gance is but the expression of agnosticism parading 
in the garb of science. 

The great men who have done most for science 
are not of this temper. The Copernicuses, Newtons, 
Amperes, Faradays, Oersteds and Henrys were mod- 
est men. 

The great physicist, ClerkrMaxwell, declared to- 
wards the close of his life that all the agnostic hy- 
potheses he had ever known need a God to make 
them workable. 

Sir William Thompson, professor of natural phi- 
losophy in Glasgow University, and who has prob- 
ably done more for the advancement of physical 
science than any other living man, had this to say 
recently : " One word characterizes the most stren- 
uous of the efforts for the advancement of science 
that I have made perseveringly through fift3^-five 
years; that word \s failure ; I know no more of elec- 
tric and magnetic force, or of the relation between 
ether, electricity and ponderable matter, or of chem- 



ical afEnit}^ than I knew and tried to teach ni}^ stu- 
dentvS of natural philosophy fifty years ago in my 
first session as professor." 

A considerable amount of space comparatively is 
devoted in these pages to Geology, although it would 
appear that only a few passages of scripture really 
bear upon this science. Still Geology in one of its 
branches, Paleontology, or the science of fossils, 
enters largely into Biology, Anthropology, the treat- 
ment of the questions of the Antiquity of Man and 
the Deluge. What we know of prehistoric Biology 
and Anthropology^ we learn entirely from the study 
of fossils. 

Hence a great deal of Geology is given which may 
at first sight seem unnecessary, or even foreign to the 
subject matter under consideration. But to avoid 
continual reference to Geology when treating of the 
other sciences I thought it best to give all its results 
under one caption. 

Because I have treated the sciences separately in 
order to avoid calling them up promiscuously when 
needed, this treatise may appear somewhat shapeless 
and of faulty construction. Still I thought it prefer- 
able to use this method rather than that of mingling 
up the sciences interminably together. 

I have recognized the v/orld as older than Usher 
makes it, and favored the theory of a partial deluge, 
because these view^s are legitim.ate interpretations of 
Genesis and held by many of the greatest commenta- 
tors and are more in accord with the present teach- 
ings of science. 

Thk Author. 



THE 

SCIENCE OF THE BIBLE. 



Chapter I. 

MOSBS. 

This first chapter is devoted to a vshort biographical sketch 
of Moses, the author of the Pentateuch. By establishing at 
the outset the character of the great prophet for honesty, sin- 
cerity and candor, it will obviate the necessity of continual 
reference to him when we come to the Study of the Penta- 
teuch. 

Exodus. — The first and second chapters 
of the book of Exodus contain the follow- 
ing narration: '^ These are the names of 
the children of Israel, that went into Egypt 
with Jacob ; they went in every man with 
his household, Ruben, Simon, Levi, Juda, 
Issachar, Zabalon and Benjamin, Dian, and 
Nephthali, Gad and Aser. 

And all the souls that came out of Jacobus 
thigh, were seventy : but Joseph was' in 
Egypt. 

After he was dead, and all his brethren, 
and all that generation, the children of 
Israel increased, and sprang up into multi- 
tudes, and growing exceedingly strong they 
filled the land. 

(9) 



— lo- 
in the meantime there arose a new king 
over Egypt, that knew not Joseph : and he 
said to his people : Behold the people of 
the children of Israel are nnmerons and 
stronger than we. 

Come let ns wisety oppress them, lest 
they mnltiply : and if anj^ war shall rise 
against ns, join with onr enemies, and 
having overcome ns, depart ontof the land. 

Therefore he set over them masters of 
the works, to afSict them with bnrdens : 
and they bnilt for Pharaoh cities of taber- 
nacles, Phithom and Ramesses. 

Bnt the more they oppressed them, the 
more they were multiplied, and increased : 

And the Egyptians hated the children of 
Israel, and afflicted them and mocked them ; 

And they made their life bitter with hard 
works in clay, and brick, and with all man- 
ner of service, wherewith they were over- 
charged in the works of the earth. 

And the king of Egypt spoke to the 
midwives of the Hebrew^s : of whom one 
was called Sephora, the other Phua, com- 
manding them : When you shall do the 
office of midwives to the Hebrew women, 
and the time of delivery is come : If it be a 
man child, kill it ; if a woman, keep it alive. 

Bnt the midwives feared God, and did 
not do as the king of Egypt had com- 
manded, bnt saved the men children. 



— 11 — 

And tlie king called for them and said : 
What is it that you meant to do, that you 
would save the men children ? 

They answered : The Hebrew women are 
not as the Egyptian w^omen ; for they them- 
selves are skillful in the ofi&ce of a midwife ; 
and they are delivered before we come to 
them. 

Therefore God dealt well with the mid- 
wives : and the people multiplied and grew 
exceedingly strong. 

And because the midwives feared God, 
he built them houses. 

Pharaoh therefore charged all his people, 
saying: Whatsoever shall be born of the 
male sex, ye shall cast into the river ; what- 
soever of the female, ye shall save alive. 

After this there went a man of the house 
of Levi, and took a wife of his own kin- 
dred. 

And she conceived, and bore a son : and 
seeing him a goodly child, hid him three 
months. 

And when she could hide him no longer, 
she took a basket of bulrushes, and daubed 
it with slime and pitch : and put the little 
babe therein, and laid him in the sedges by 
the river's brink. 

His sister standing afar off, and taking 
notice what v\^ould be done. 

And behold the daughter of Pharaoh came 



— 12 — 

down to wasli herself in the river; and her 
maids walked by the river's brink. And 
when she saw the basket in the sedges, 
she sent one of her maids for it: and when 
it was brought, she opened it, and seeing 
within it an infant crying, having compas- 
sion on it she said : This is one of the babes 
of the Hebrews. 

And the child's sister said to her : Shall 
I go, and call to thee a Hebrew woman, to 
nurse the babe ? 

She answered : Go. The maid went and 
called her mother. 

And Pharaoh's daughter said to her : 
Take this child and nurse him for me : I 
will give thee thy wages. The woman took, 
and NURSED the child : and when he was 
grown up she delivered him to Pharaoh's 
daughter. 

And she adopted him for a son, and called 
him Moses, saying: ^'Because I took him 
out of the water." 

Israelites in Egypt. — The Hebrews 
are a very ancient people and most probably 
received their name through Abraham, who 
emigrated from Ur of Chaldea into Pales- 
tine or Canaan in the year 192 1 B. C. 

The Canaanites called the stranger Eber 
(beyond), because he came from beyond 
(eber) the Euphrates. Abraham had an 
only son, Isaac, who had a son Jacob. The 



— 13 — 

Israelites were named for Jacob who had 
been surnamed Israel. 

Jacob had twelve sons, Joseph being the 
eleventh. Jacob loved Joseph more dearly 
than any of his other sons, and bestowed 
on him openly many tokens of his favor- 
itism. Joseph thereby incnrred the hatred 
and enmity of his brothers, who finally 
conspired to sell him as a slave to some 
Ishmaelite merchants. These traders bore 
the yonng man away to Egypt and sold 
him to the first ofi&cer of Pharaoh^s gnard, 
Pntiphar. 

Joseph because of his wisdom and virtues 
reached great distinction in Egypt, becom- 
ing indeed the first minister of the country. 
During the sway of an universal famine he 
invited Jacob and all his family to Egypt, 
where they were welcomed with great kind- 
ness by Pharaoh. 

The Israelites, being a pastoral people, 
established themselves in Goshen, a part 
of Egypt very favorably adapted to the 
raising of flocks. 

In progress of time the Israelites rapidly 
increased in numbers and possessions. The 
Egyptians regarded this rapid growth of 
the descendants of Jacob as a menace to 
their own safety and resolved to slowly ex- 
terminate them. Accordingly the Egyp- 
tians reduced the Israelites to a condition 



— 14 — 

of the basest bondage, imposing upon them 
the most difficult and painful tasks. 

It was finally decreed by Egypt's ruler, 
as described in Bxodus, that every male 
child born of the Hebrews should be thrown 
into the Nile. It was during the progress 
of this bitter persecution that Moses was 
born. His father, Amram, and his mother, 
Jochebed, were both descendants of Levi, 
the third son of Jacob. Moses was born in 
Heliopolis in the year 1571 B. C. 

Childhood. — All accounts agree that the 
infant Moses was a most beautiful and win- 
some babe. The united artifices of his 
mother Jochebed and his sister Miriam suc- 
ceeded in eluding the vigilance of Pha- 
raoh's myrmidons and saving the darling 
infant's life for the space of three months. 
Escape for the child being no longer pos- 
sible they hid him in a neatly fashioned 
basket of papyrus and placed it among the 
reeds of the sedgy Nile, close to the spot 
where Thermuthis or Merris, Pharaoh's 
daughter, was wont to bathe. 

With beating heart and burning brow 
the eager sister, concealed behind a friendly 
bush, watched for the coming princess. 
Thermuthis approaches the familiar spot 
and perceiving the basket opens it and dis- 
covers the laughing babe. The princess 
was at once charmed with the sweet-faced. 



— 15 — 

red-lipped smiling boy and resolved to save 
him. 

Now, Miriam opportunely appears and 
volunteers to find a Hebrew woman, if the 
princess so desired, to nurse the babe. Ther- 
muthis gladly yields and the child's mother, 
Jochebed, is secured as a nurse. 

The princess instructed the willing moth- 
er to carefully rear the child at her expense. 

When the child was sufficiently grown 
he was taken to the palace and given to 
Pharaoh's daughter, who adopted him for 
her son. Josephus tells us that Moses is 
the Egyptian for saved from the WATERS. 

Nature had favored Moses with a trans- 
cendently gifted mind. The Princess Ther- 
muthis bestowed the greatest care upon his 
education and culture. She surrounded 
him with the ablest masters and had him 
thoroughly instructed in all the knowledge 
and science of Egypt, Greece, Assyria and 
particularly of Chaldea. 

Josephus. — " For Moses was the son of 
Amram, who was the son of Caath, whose 
father, Levi, was the son of Jacob, who was 
the son of Isaac, who was the son of Abra- 
ham. Now Moses' understanding became 
superior to his age, nay, far beyond that 
standard ; and when he was taught, he dis- 
covered greater quickness of apprehension 
than was usual at his age ; and his actions 



— 16 — 

at that time promised greater, when he 
should come to the age of a man. God did 
also give him that tallness, when he was 
but three years old, as was wonderful ; and 
for his beauty, there was nobody so unpo- 
lite as, when they saw Moses, they were not 
greatly surprised at the beauty of his coun- 
tenance : nay, it happened frequently, that 
those that met him as he was carried along 
the road, were obliged to turn again upon 
seeing the child, that they left w^hat they 
were about, and stood still a great while to 
look on him ; for the beauty of the child 
was so remarkable and natural to him on 
many accounts, that it detained the specta- 
tors, and made them stay longer to look 
upon him. 

Thermuthis, therefore, perceiving him to 
be so remarkable a child, adopted him for 
her son, having no child of her own. And 
when one time she had carried Moses to her 
father, she shewed him to him, and said 
she thought to make him her father's suc- 
cessor, if it should please God she should 
have no legitimate child of her own ; and 
said to him, ^^ I have brought up a child 
who is of a divine form, and of a generous 
mind ; and as I have received him from the 
bounty of the river, in a wonderful manner, 
I thought proper to adopt him for my son, 
and the heir of thy Kingdom.'' And when 



— 17 — 

she had said this, she put the infant into 
her father's hands ; so he took him, and 
hugged him close to his breast; and on his 
daughter's account, in a pleasant way, put 
his diadem upon his head ; but Moses threw 
it down to the ground, and, in a puerile 
mood, he wreathed it round, and trod upon 
it with his feet ; which seemed to bring 
along with it an evil presage concerning 
the Kingdom of Egypt. But when the 
sacred scribe saw this, (he was the same 
person who foretold that his nativity would 
bring the dominion of that kingdom low,) 
he made a violent attempt to kill him : and 
crying out in a frightful manner, he said, 
" This, O King, this child is he of w^hom 
God foretold, that if we kill him we shall 
be in no danger ; he himself affords an at- 
testation to the prediction of the same 
thing, by his trampling upon thy govern- 
ment, and treading upon thy diadem. Take 
him, therefore, out of the way, and deliver 
the Egyptians from the fear they are in 
about him ; and deprive the Hebrews of 
the hope they have of being encouraged by 
him.'' But Thermuthis prevented him, and 
snatched the child away. And the King 
w^as not hasty to slay him. God himself, 
whose providence protected Moses, inclin- 
ing the King to spare him. He was, there- 
fore, educated with great care. So the 



— 18 — 

Hebrews depended on him, and were of 
good hopes that great things would be done 
by him ; but the Egyptians were suspicious 
of what would follow such his education. 
Yet because, if Moses had been slain, there 
was no one, either akin or adopted, that 
had any oracle on his side for pretending 
to the crown of Egypt, and likely to be of 
greater advantage to them, they abstained 
from killing him.'' (Ant., II, Chap. 9, 6-7). 

In his early manhood Moses stood im- 
mensely high with the ruling powers of 
Egypt. He held a princely rank at Court 
and is said to have become a priest and to 
have led with great success Egyptian armies 
against Ethiopia. 

When Moses had attained his thirtieth 
year he forsook the palace of the Pharaohs, 
and made his home with the oppressed 
Hebrews, his countrymen, espousing their 
cause and boldly seeking the amelioration 
of their sad condition. 

On one occasion he came upon an Egyp- 
tian overseer in the very act of cruelly pun- 
ishing a helpless Hebrew slave. Moses slew 
the oppressor and immediately fled from 
Egypt. 

In his flight he crossed the Red Sea and 
entered Midian, a province of Asia, border- 
ing on Egypt. During his wanderings in 
Midian he did a kindly service to the seven 



— 19 — 

daughters of Jethro, a wise priest of that 
country. Moses protected these maidens, 
who were tending their father^s flocks, from 
neighboring shepherds who had offered 
them some rudeness. Jethro hearing of it 
hospitably received Moses into his family. 
Moses married Zipporah, Jethro^s daughter, 
and tended the flocks of his father-in-law 
during forty years. 

Vocation of Mo^es. — It was in the 
eightj-sixth year of his age that God called 
Moses to free the Hebrews from the bond- 
age of Egypt. Moses having led his flocks 
on one occasion as far into the desert as 
Mount Horeb, which is the northeast peak 
of Mount Sinai, God manifested himself to 
him in the burning bush and commissioned 
him to deliver his people. 

Moses, conscious of the almost insuper- 
able difficulty of the undertaking and dif- 
fident of his own powers for 'the successful 
accomplishment of such a mighty task, be- 
sought God to release him from the re- 
sponsibility. But God encouraged him and 
prom^ised to be his helper in all things. 

Moses, by God^s direction, associated with 
him in the undertaking his brother Aaron, 
who was eloquent and fluent of speech. It 
may be here remarked that Moses was more 
of a man of counsel and of action than of 
a flowery tongue. 



— 20 — 

With the assistance of God the brothers 
gained the entire confidence and hearty co- 
operation of the Hebrew people. Moses 
by his wisdom and miraculous powers won 
the esteem of the then ruling prince of 
Egypt, his ministers and courtiers. By 
his wonderful signs and prodigies he com- 
pletely discomfited the Egyptian priest- 
hood. 

The brothers demanded of Pharaoh in 
Jehovah^s name that he w^ould allow the 
Hebrew people to go forth into the wilder- 
ness to offer sacrifice to their deity and 
celebrate their spring festival of the Pass- 
over. 

Pharaoh refusing to grant the permis- 
sion, God through Moses, made use of the 
plagues of Egypt to force the king into 
acquiescence. 

These plagues were for the most part 
natural and customarv visitations of the 
land of Egypt, but God, as is often his wont, 
made use miraculously of the natural phe- 
nomena to carry out his own wise ends. 

These were the plagues employed by 
Moses : The turning of the waters into 
blood ; visitations of frogs ; gnats ; flies ; 
death of cattle ; ulcers in men and beasts ; 
hail and fire ; locusts ; darkness ; death of 
the first born. 

During the progress of each plague Pharaoh 



— 21 — 

promised to let the Hebrews go, but on its 
cessation he rescinded this promise. 

The tenth plague, the death of the first 
bom, however, so terrified the Egyptians and 
Pharaoh that the Israelites were at last allowed 
to depart. On the morning after the passage 
of the destroying angel, every dwelling of the 
Egyptians had a dead body, from the palace 
to the poorest cabin. The descendants of 
Jacob had dwelt in Egypt for four hundred 
and thirty j^ears, and in their exodus num- 
bered 600,000 fighting men. The Egyptians 
were very reluctant to permit the Hebrews to 
go because they were of vast utility to them- 
selves, being the veriest slaves and doing all 
the servile work of Egypt. 

Flight.- — Apparently the Israelites de- 
parted for the wilderness to perform a reli- 
gious ceremony required by their God and 
appropriate to the season, but they had their 
secret instructions from Moses that" they were 
leaving Egypt no more to return, but to jour- 
ney towards the land flowing with milk and 
honey that Jehovah had promised to their 
forefathers. 

Canaan, their ancient heritage and the 
land of Jacob, was the object of their flight. 
Fearing to incur the hostilit}^ of the Philis- 
tines the Hebrews had to abandon the direct 
eastward road leading to Palestine and travel 



— 22 — 

towards the southwest, v/hich led them to the 
northern arm of the Red Sea. 

Escape. — Pharaoh after the departure of the 
Israelites, repented letting them go and pur- 
sued them with a great army, coming up with 
them on the shores of the Red Sea. Here 
again the Lord interposed to deliver his peo- 
ple and punish their persecutors. Moses 
miraculously divided the waters of the gulf 
of Suez forming the N. W. arm of the Red 
Sea, and the Hebrews gladly crossed to elude 
their pursuers. The Egyptians followed 
eagerly and had just attacked the escaping 
hordes of Israel, when the waters returned 
suddenly in great gulfs and swallowed up 
Pharaoh and his hosts. 

Journey to Sinai. — Leaving the shores 
of the Red Sea the Hebrews entered the 
desert of Sur, where thej^ suffered greatly 
from thirst and hunger and from wearisome 
marches and countermarches through the 
trackless desert. To add to their hardships 
they were fiercely attacked by the Amalek- 
ites, a predatory tribe of Arabs or Bedouins, 
whom, however, under the wise and skillful 
leadership of Moses, 'they succeeded in re- 
pulsing. 

In his control and government of the Israel- 
ites, particularly in the early stages of their 
wanderings, Moses displaj^ed the most extra- 
ordinary qualities of an organizer and leader. 



— 23 — 

To feed between two and three million of peo- 
ple in the wilderness was in itself no easy 
matter. Besides the Israelites had almost 
instantly passed from a condition of the most 
abject slavery to that of the wildest freedom. 
They were eqnally unfitted for self-govern- 
ment and undisciplined to repel the attacks of 
the war-like Bedouins that harrassed their 
marches. They had been half -brutalized by 
their bondage and the finer instincts of hu- 
manity were almost crushed in them. Their 
sense of gratitude to God and Moses for all 
that had been wrought for them was feeble 
and often entirely forgotten. Their mur- 
murings and complaints were constant and 
they frequently broke into open rebellion 
against their leaders and expressed their reso- 
lution to return to the flesh-pots of Egypt. 

Moses proved himself equal to every emer- 
gency, and though the meekest of men, could 
be firm and unbending when discipline re- 
quired it. He proved himself the leader, 
legislator, ruler, judge, seer and father of his 
people. God through his instrumentality 
had wrought so many signal wonders that 
nothing could shake the people's faith and 
confidence in him. 

Sinai. — In the third month of their flight 
from Bgypt the Hebrews reached Mount 
Sinai and encamped around its base. Moses 
ascended the mountain to commune with God 



— 24 — 

and receive the divine commissions for the 
people. On the third morning, the people be- 
ing reverently assembled by the direction of 
Moses aronnd the foot of the monntain, the 
voice of God was heard declaring his precepts. 
Nothing conld be more awe-inspiring or sub- 
limely impressive than the manner in which 
the commandments were announced to the 
people. Lightnmg and tempest and the rock- 
ing of the great mountain formed the prelude 
to their delivery. 

Sinai is really a range of mountains, in 
Arabia Petrsea, separated on the west from 
Egypt by the Gulf of Suez, and from a lofty 
peak of which, Jebel Musa (lat. 29^ 20' N.), 
God gave the commandments. 

Moses again ascended the mountain for 
further communion with God and remained 
conversing with him for the space of forty 
days and nights. During the' absence of 
Moses the Israelites forgot God and his new 
precepts so far as to fall into idolatry, making 
a golden idol and offering it divine worship 
after the manner of some Egyptians who had 
accompanied them in their flight. 

Moses on his return was very much in- 
censed at finding this condition of affairs. 
He severely rebuked the people for their 
crimes and ingratitude and sentenced a great 
number of the more guilty to death. 



— 25 — 

Priesthood and Tabernacle. — It is 
true that from the earliest times the He- 
brews had some form of ceremonial law in 
their religious worship. Still before the 
advent of Moses they had no regular priest- 
hood, the patriarchs and heads of families 
fulfilling the ofiice and worshipping the 
Lord more or less after their individual 
tastes. Moses now, however, under Jeho- 
vah^s direction, established a fixed cere- 
monial and a regular priesthood. God 
called the tribe of Levi to the priesthood, 
while the office of high priest was to be 
filled by Aaron and his descendants. 

Neither did the Israelites have, hitherto, 
a fixed place of worship. Moses now re- 
solved to build a rich shrine or tabernacle 
to be solely devoted to the services of the 
Lord. He constructed a shrine that was 
portable and could be borne about by the 
Israelites in their wanderings through the 
wilderness. 

It was built of the most precious mate- 
rials obtainable and was 45 ft. long, 15 feet 
wide and 15 feet high. The boards com- 
posing it were of hard fine wood and cov- 
ered with plates of gold. The pieces could 
be taken apart, carried from place to place, 
and again easily replaced in position. 

The sacred shrine consisted of two parts, 
the outer and larger part was called the 



— 26 — 

Sanctuary, and the inner and smaller part, 
the Holy of Holies. This beautiful taber- 
nacle was adorned with the richest and 
choicest tapestry. At the entrance of the 
Sanctuary was hung a curtain of rich em- 
broidery and another more precious curtain 
divided the Sanctuary from the Holy of 
Holies. 

The ark of the covenant made almost of 
solid gold was placed within the Holy of 
Holies. The rod of Aaron, a vase filled 
with manna, the food of the wilderness, 
and the tables of the law were placed in 
the ark of the covenant. It was called the 
Ark of the Covenant because of its con- 
taining the tables of the commandments or 
the Old Covenant between God and his 
people. 

The lid of the Ark of the Covenant, en- 
tirely of gold, was called the Propitiatory. 
On this lid were fastened two cherubim of 
beaten gold, facing each other. 

A table covered with gold stood in the 
sanctuary on which were daily placed the 
unleavened loaves of proposition and a 
golden cup, filled with wine. The seven 
branched candlestick stood on this table, 
also, on which burned continually seven oil 
lamps. Before the table stood an altar of 
incense from which sweetest perfumes con- 
stantly arose. 



— 27 — 

A court to contain the people was formed 
around the tabernacle, in which was placed 
a brass altar of holocausts and a brazen 
laver for the priests. 

Feasts. — When Moses had occasion to 
consult the Lord on any grave concern he 
entered solemn^ into the Holy of Holies 
and received God's answer from the Propi- 
tiatory. Moses, by God's command, pre- 
scribed the kinds of sacrifices, bloody and 
unbloody, to be offered, and also the times 
and manner of offering them. 

Moses also, by the direction of God, in- 
stituted the Jewish feasts. The Passover, 
in commemoration of the deliverance from 
Eg3^pt ; the feast of Pentecost in remem- 
brance of the law given on Mount Sinai ; 
and the feast of the Tabernacles, when the 
harvest was gathered in, to keep in mem- 
ory the fact that their fathers dwelt in 
tents in the wilderness. Moses dedicated 
the tabernacle and consecrated Aaron the 
high priest of the Lord with the most im- 
pressive and gorgeous ceremonies. 

Death of Moses. — From the base of 
Sinai the Israelites renewed their journey 
towards Canaan, the land of promise. God 
was so displeased with their murmurings, 
rebellions, infidelity and hardness of heart 
that he directed Moses to keep them wan- 
derers in the desert for the space of forty 



~2S — 

years. From Sinai they passed into Kadesh 
(Phoran, Zin), East of Goshen in Egypt, 
and on the southern borders of Canaan, 
where most of those long weary years were 
spent. Moses, too, thought that it would 
be fool-hardy to lead an unorganized, undis- 
ciplined mass of freed slaves, such as the 
Hebrews really were, against the war-like 
tribes of Canaan. 

During their sojourn in the desert Moses 
gradually educated and completely changed 
them into a new and great nation, so that 
when they finally undertook the conquest 
of Palestine, they were thoroughly equal to 
the task. Above all he had inspired them 
with such faith and trust in God, that noth- 
ing could resist their united zeal. 

Towards the close of their forty years of 
wanderings Moses led the people into north- 
ern Moab, which he wrested from the Am- 
morite King, its then ruler. Apprising the 
Israelites of his approaching death, appoint- 
ing Joshua as his successor and beseeching 
them to be faithful to God under all circum- 
stances, he entered Mount Nebo to die. 
From the heights of Nebo he obtained his 
first and last glimpse of the distant Canaan, 
the land promised by God to the patriarchs, 
for which he had pined all his life. For a 
momentary diffidence, striking the rock 
twice, --God punished him by denying him 



— 29 — 

entrance into Canaan. He was buried in a 
valley in the land of ]\Ioab. 

His Character. — There are few names, 
if indeed any, in history, sacred or profane, 
as towering as that of Moses. Like a great 
mountain peak it soars aloft and remains in 
solemn solitary grandeur, undimmed and 
undiminished by all the centuries. It has 
been too lofty to be reached or bathed by 
the mists and clouds of time. 

He was the first to foster the growth of 
a national unity among the tribes of Israel 
and took advantage of the pressure of 
necessity to weld together the most diverse 
elements. 

He heroically endeavored to make his 
people a truly religious nation, cultivating 
every noble virtue for Jehovah's sake and 
seeking God's aid in every great emergency 
of life. He attributed all his triumphs to 
God and did nothing of any moment with- 
out God's direction. He thus connected 
every greatness, every success, ever}^ noble 
achievement, every exemplary virtue vvith 
the name of God and the idea of religion. 

His Virtues. — Under the pressure of 
every excitement and in all the supreme 
moments of danger he displaj^ed calmness. 
This calmness was manifested in his deal- 
ings with Pharaoh, in the crossing of the 
Red Sea, and in the episode of the golden 



— 30 — 

calf, when he returned from the mountain 
and found that even Aaron had yielded to 
weakness. 

He was disinterested, attributing every 
triumph to God and claiming nothing for 
himself, and establishing the office of high 
priest in the off-spring of Aaron to the ex- 
clusion of his ov/n sons and their descend- 
ants. 

His patience was invincible. No cross, 
no trial, not even the unexpected could 
ruffle it. The seditions fostered by the 
jealousy of the elders and other unceasing 
vexations could not sour the unfailing 
sweetness of the temper of the '' man of 
God.'^ 

He had perseverance. During all the 
opposition of Pharaoh and the desolate 
years of the wilderness he persevered in his 
aim to reach the promised land. 

He had wisdom in council as he had for- 
titude in war. 

He was the meekest of men. His name 
has ever been the Biblical synonym for 
meekness, and still he possessed the keen- 
est energy and when occasion called for it 
the swiftest rapidity of action. 

And notwithstanding his forbearing dis- 
position he could be severe when God di- 
rected it and crime deserved it, as in the 
punishment of the guilty followers of Core, 



81 



Datlian and Abiron, as also in the instance 
of the idolators at the base of Sinai. 

JosEPHUS. — ^^ Now Moses lived in all one 
hnndred and twenty years; a third part of 
which time, abating one month, he was the 
people's rnler; and he died on the last month 
of the year, which is called by the Macedoni- 
ans DYSTRUS, bnt by ns adar, on the first 
day of the month. He was one that exceeded 
all men that ever were in understanding, and 
made the best use of what understanding sug- 
gested to him. He had a very graceful way 
of speaking and addressing himself to the 
multitude; and as to his other qualifications, 
he had such a full command of his passions, 
as if he had hardly any such in his soul, and 
only knew them by their names, as rather 
perceiving them in other men than in him- 
self. He was also such a general of an army 
as is seldom seen, as well as such a prophet 
as was never known, and this to such a de- 
gree, that whatsoever he pronounced, you 
would think you heard the voice of God him- 
self. So the people mourned for him thirty 
days ; nor did any grief so deeply affect the 
Hebrews as did this upon the death of Moses ; 
nor were those who had experienced his con- 
duct the only persons that desired him, but 
those also that perused the laws he left be- 
hind him had a strong desire after him, and 
by them gathered the extraordinary virtue 



— 32 — 

he was master of. And this shall suffice for 
the declaration of the manner of the death of 
Moses.'' (Ant. IV. 8, 49.) 



Chapter II. 

THE PENTATEUCH. 

Pentateuch is derived from the two Greek 
words TzsvTs, five, and Tsijy^o::, book, and is the 
name by which the first five books of the Old 
Testament are commonly known; the Jews, 
however, were wont to call them by the name, 
Torah, the law; or Torath Mosheh, the Law 
of Moses. 

The books composing the Pentateuch are 
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and 
Deuteronomy. 

Genesis contains the history of the world^s 
creation and its principal events to the time 
of the death of the patriarch Joseph, and is, 
with the probable exception of the book of Job, 
the most ancient of all books. Genesis carries 
us back to the very earliest ages of our race 
and covers a period of more than 2300 years 
and gives an account of man's fall, the gene- 
alogies, settlements, religion and destruction 
of the antediluvian earth ; of its re-peopling, 
the call of Abraham and the rise and growth 
of the Israelites. 



Bxodus tells of the escape of the Hebrews 
from Egyptian bondage and closes with the 
relation of their encampment aronnd Sinai. 

Leviticus is a summary of the laws given 
the Israelites by Moses under the direction 
of Almighty God. ' It also treats of the sacri- 
fices, religious festivals, the duties of the 
priests and Levites and the ceremonial wor- 
ship of the Hebrews. 

Numbers gives a census of the people of 
Israel and describes the march through the 
wilderness and the entrance into the land of 
Canaan. It embraces a period of 38 years 
and opens with the second month of the second 
year after the exodus. 

Deuteronomy is chiefly devoted to a reiter- 
ation of the precepts of the law. It gives an 
account, too, of what took place in the wilder- 
ness during the eleventh month and the first 
week of the twelfth month in the 40th year 
of the wanderings of the Hebrews. With 
the exception of the last chapter, which gives 
an account of his death, it was written by 
Moses. This last chapter was written by 
Josue to serve as a transition to his own book. 

Tradition. — The constant and unani- 
mous tradition of the Jews and early Chris- 
tians ascribe the authorship of the Penta- 
teuch to Moses. It is absolutely certain 
that it could be the work of Moses alone, 

nor was its authenticity seriously disputed 
3 



— 34- 

before the 17th century. In the time of 
Our Lord the Jews, of whatever religious or 
political complexion, universally ascribed 
the Pentateuch to the pen of Moses. The 
Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes and common 
people were unanimously of this opinion. 
Nor could they have easily fallen into error 
concerning a work of so vast moment to 
themselves, embracing as it did the laws 
upon which their government and society 
rested. It was, too, the rule of their reli- 
gious worship, as well as the recognized 
history of their race. All with the greatest 
unanimity refer the Pentateuch to the time 
when their society was formed and their 
religious ceremonial solemnly instituted, 
that is, to the time of their great law-giver 
and leader, Moses. Certainly the whole 
people collectively could not be deceived in 
so vital an affair. Christ and his apostles 
frequently refer in the New Testament to 
the Pentateuch, designating it as the law 
of Moses or the Book of Moses. 

From the Pentateuch. — Not only do 
the tradition and universal consent of the 
Jewish race go to show the authenticity of 
the Pentateuch, but moreover the testimony 
of the work itself does the very same thing 
still more strongly if possible. It is re- 
peatedly asserted in the Pentateuch that 
Moses is its author (Exod. XVII., 14 ; 



— 35 — 

Exod. XXIV., 4-7 ; Bxod. XXX., 27 ; Num. 
XXXIIL, 1-2; Num. XXXVI., 13; Deut. 
XXVIII., 61 ; Deut. XXIX., 20-27 ; Deut. 
XXX., 19; Deut. XXXI., 9-22-24. 

Profane Authors. — The Jews, follow- 
ing the precepts of their religion, in a great 
measure shunned all intercourse with the 
neighboring pagan and idolatrous nations. 
On account of this extreme exclusiveness 
it is not to be wondered at that they and 
their affairs were but little known to pro- 
fane authors. Nevertheless many of such 
authors refer to Moses as the Jewish Law- 
giver and Leader. Among others who do 
so may be named Diodorus Siculus, Athen- 
agoras, Tatian, Tacitus, Dion Cassius, 
Juvenal, Celsus and Porphry ; and Josephus 
mentions among Egyptian writers Mane- 
tho, Chseremon and Apion. There are 
really much stronger and clearer proofs 
from contemporary and succeeding authors 
that Moses wrote the Pentateuch than for 
the authenticity of the works of Plato, 
Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil and Livy. Con- 
stant and perpetual tradition have given 
the authorship of these works to the men 
whose names they bear, and the same argu- 
ment should hold good in regard to the 
authenticity of the Pentateuch. 

The Old Testament. — There are quo- 
tations credited to the Pentateuch in Macha- 



— 36 — 

bees, Esdras, Nehemia, the Prophets, Kings, 
Judges, the Psalms, and indeed in all the 
books of the Old Testament from Josue to 
Hosea. Every history and writing of the 
Hebrew people quote from the Pentateuch 
and refer to it as familiarly known to all 
Jews. 

Either the books of Josue, Nehemia, Es- 
dras. Kings, and all the writings of the 
Jewish nation deserve no belief or the Pen- 
tateuch is the work of Moses. No mention 
except of him as its author has ever been 
made by any genuinely true Hebrew docu- 
ment. 

Internal Evidence. — There is strong 
internal evidence in the Pentateuch to show 
that it is the work of Moses. No one else 
could have given to the book the impress 
of a diary, by which it is so clearly marked, 
jotting down all the items important either 
in his own individual or the national career, 
and only one standing in its very center 
could depict with such faithful and glow- 
ing colors the life that moved around him. 
The man alone could do it, who was in the 
midst of the events. 

The author refers to the events, sermons 
and laws as being not only a witness of 
these things, but also a participator in them. 
The author touches on many things which 
Moses alone saw and describes them so ex- 



— 37 — 

actly and with such minuteness of the cir- 
cumstances of time, places and persons that 
only a writer contemporary with them could 
possibly so recount them. Many of the 
things written bar an author more recent 
than Moses. Some of the laws govern the 
conduct of the Israelites, while dwelling in 
the tents in the desert, others place them 
as not having as yet reached Canaan. 

The very defect in the order of giving 
the laws shows a contemporary author, as 
3. later one would have put them in a better 
order, placing together the laws relating to 
the same thing. The author of the Penta- 
teuch, on the contrary, records the lav/s 
without regard to order or connection, jot- 
ting them down as they were given, together 
with a notice of the events which gave oc- 
casion to them. The laws were written just 
as commanded and proclaimed. 

Only the legislator himself could give 
such a detailed and at the same time so full 
an account of the law. 

Every undertaking, journey, transaction, 
is described so accurately as to place and 
time as only could have been done by 
Moses. He speaks in it to the men whom 
he has led for many years, as one who has 
lived through all the events himself. The 
confused, abrupt and fragmentary charac- 
ter of the Pentateuch show it the work of 



Moses, since a later historian wonld have 
wrought the mixed mass of personal, legal, 
historical and geographical material into a 
methodical and systematic whole. 

No one writing after Moses could possi- 
bly have possessed the extraordinarily cor- 
rect knowledge of contemporary Egypt and 
Arabia which appears throughout the Pen- 
tateuch. And this is especially true in his 
historical sketch of Joseph. 

The Language. — The very language of 
the Pentateuch is a strong and direct argu- 
ment of its authenticity. It is true that 
its language resembles very much that of 
the other books of the Old Testament be- 
cause, in honor of Moses, it was held and 
revered by the Hebrew people during all 
the ages as their classic language. Every 
Hebrew writer aimed to imitate its style as 
closely as possible. 

The Pentateuch, however, offers certain 
peculiarities of language of its own, such 
as the use of a common pronoun of the 
third person singular for both the masculine 
and feminine genders; the same term for 
boy and girl, and other very antique modes 
of expression, distinctly proving it to be a 
work of ver}^ much older date than any 
other portions of the Old Testament with 
the sole exception of the book of Job. 



Harmony of Versions. — Another strong 
proof of the authenticity of the Pentateuch 
is the extraordinary concordance of the dif- 
ferent versions or codices. The substance, 
is certainly the same in all, no discordance 
of any moment is found between them. 
The work of transcribing the Pentateuch 
from parchment to parchment in ancient 
times was slow and laborious and one tran- 
scription occupied a lifetime. The great 
harmony between the versions is therefore 
most wonderful, and is due in a great meas- 
ure to the fact that the ancient transcribers 
regarded their work with a religious sacred- 
ness. 

Owing to the many transcriptions there 
may be some insignificant discrepancies in 
letters, punctuation and light words, but the 
integrity is untouched. The Greek version 
made three centuries before our era at Alex- 
andria, the other Greek versions of the second 
century after Christ, and the Latin versions 
wonderfull}^ agree substantially. 

The Samaritans were at emnity with the 
Je^vs and rejected all the books of the Old 
Testament with the exception of the Pen- 
tateuch, which they have always preser\xd 
with the greatest care and veneration. Our 
version of the Pentateuch and that of the 
Samaritans agree most wonderfully in essen- 
tials. The Samaritan Pentateuch, with a 



— 40 — 

very few characteristic alterations, is an ac- 
curate transcript of our Pentateuch, and this 
would have been an utter impossibility, con- 
sidering the hostile relations between the 
Jews and Samaritans, if it had not been well 
known as a genuine document before the 
division of the empire. 

Historically True. — What is related in 
the Pentateuch must be historically true. 
The tradition and consent of the whole Jewish 
people prove this. Moses could not have 
recorded as a fact some storied fable or grave 
falsehood without being contradicted by the 
Jewish people, who were Avitnesses of what 
he related. The book was preserved and 
guarded with the most jealous care and was 
kept in the ark of the covenant. Bvery 
seventh year it had to be read to the people in 
public. Certain priestly, sanitary and other 
laws required continual reference to it, so that 
certain portions of it were widely m use at 
an early period. It was necessary that every 
Synagogue, according to the law, should 
have a roll of the Pentateuch, written on 
parchment and certain portions therefrom 
read on the Sabbath and feast days. 

The moral integrity of the author, who 
in a grave and simple style, relates events 
of which he himself performed the chief 
parts, great public events seen by all the 
people, commands the greatest faith; be- 



— 41 — 

cause they are told with the consent of the 
people who witnessed them, and are more- 
over attested by pnblic monuments. 

Moses, too, by the tradition of the Jew- 
ish nation enjoyed the greatest fame for his 
virtues, and his great integrity is easily 
gathered from the writings themselves. 
The style is grave and simple and so free 
from any sign of ostentation or art that 
truth itself seems mirrored in the sacred 
page. 

The whole narration coalesces well to- 
gether and all things look harmonious and 
consonant. Moses saw and witnessed wath 
his own ej^es most of what he relates, and 
the truth of what he recounts but did not 
witness is sustained by such indices as to 
remove all deception. 

Monuments were erected, feasts institut- 
ed, and rites celebrated, in memory of the 
things done. 

The Israelites had the greatest faith in 
its historical value and guarded it with the 
greatest care as a work absolutely true and 
inspired by God. 

Moses not Deceived. — Moses was not 
deceived concerning the truth and historic 
value of the things related by him in the 
Pentateuch. He was educated with every 
care by Pharaoh's daughter and was thor- 
oughly conversant with all the knowledge 



— 42 — 

of that time and particularly with regard 
to the affairs of Egj^pt. 

No man of his day could possibly have 
known as well and as accurate^ as he those 
things narrated by him in Exodus about 
the bondage of the Hebrews in Egypt. 
And the things related in the three later 
books were either performed by Moses 
himself or he was an eye-witness of them. 

It was Moses who saw and heard God in 
the burning bush, stood before Pharaoh, 
led the people forth from bondage and in- 
flicted the plagues on the Egyptians. It 
was Moses that guided the Israelites 
through the Red Sea, tarried with them 
forty years in the wilderness. It was Moses 
that received the -^Law from God on Sinai 
and promulgated it to the people. No bet- 
ter nor more capable witness to these facts 
could possibly be conceived of than Moses, 
who himself received the many instructions 
regarding these things from God and pub- 
lished them to the people. Moses could not 
be deceived in narrating these things in 
which he himself was the chief partici- 
pator. 

And although Moses was indeed not a 
witness of the things described by him in 
Genesis, still he could have obtained the 
knowledge of them in a most certain man- 
ner. The things which preceded the crea- 



— 48 — 

tion of man could only be known from 
divine revelation made either to Adam, the 
Patriarchs or Moses himself, whom God 
often favored with his conversation. 

Those things which followed the creation 
of man Moses could ascertain from ancient 
traditions handed down in the families of 
the Patriarchs. This tradition embraced 
the divine revelations and divine promises 
made to the fallen race of man through the 
family of Abraham. 

It was not very difficult for Moses to col- 
lect the truthful history of the times pre- 
ceding his own, freed from all fiction, for 
according to the Hebrew text the space 
from his birth to the creation of man was 
scarcely 2400 years, and such was the long 
lives of the Patriarchs, that only six gen- 
erations intervened between Moses and the 
creation of Adam. Moses easily learned 
from his father, Amram, the whole history 
of Joseph, Jacob and Isaac. And, more- 
over, such awfully impressive events as the 
Deluge, the building of the Tower of Babel, 
and the dispersion of the people could not 
easily be erased from the memory. 

Again the vestiges of the Tower of Babel 
and the altars erected to God^s service b}^ 
the Patriarchs and of other things existed 
in the time of Moses. 

Moses having written the greater part of 



— 44 — 

the Pentateuch from what he himself saw 
and heard, could not have been deceived. 
And being so well versed in antiquities and 
so deeply learned in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians, Chaldeans and Greeks, could not 
more easily be deceived concerning the 
things he derived from monuments and 
tradition than in the things of which he 
was a personal witness. He was thoroughly 
capable of distinguishing the true from the 
false. 

Moses did not Wish to Deceive. — 
There is nothing in his w^ritings that can 
lead even to the suspicion of fraud. His 
character and motives for acting and writ- 
ing show him to be a sincere and honest 
witness and widely removed from all arti- 
fice and deceit. 

Usually people are led to deception and 
fraud by a desire of their own gain or glor3^ 
Moses never studied his own glory or profit. 
He narrates to be sure the miracles he 
worked, the plagues of Egypt, the division 
of the sea, the drawing of w^ater from the 
rock, which things, indeed, reflect glory 
upon him ; but at the same time they indi- 
cate that he is only the instrument of God. 
And he ingenuously narrates how in work- 
ing them he now and then failed in his 
faith due to God, and was consequently 
punished, among the penalties being his 



— 45 — 

debarment from entrance into the promised 
land. 

Neither did he try to prove a high antiq- 
uity and great name for his own family 
nor a glorious history for his country. 
On the contrary he tells that the Hebrews 
were still very few and abject when the 
neighboring nations, the Egyptians, Chal- 
deans and Canaanites, were already very 
flourishing. 

He mentions the faults of his family and 
the people and refers to the Testament of 
Jacob, who heaps opprobrium on the tribe of 
Levi, from which he himself had arisen ; and 
the seeking of his own advantage was so 
foreign to him that he left his own sons 
among the common Levites and made Aaron 
high priest and Josue, of the tribe of 
Kphraim, the leader of the people. Every- 
where in his life and speech he shows him- 
self to be a man of the highest probity and 
of supreme candor. 

There is no indication of fraud or false- 
hood anywhere. Eminent piety in God, a 
constant study of virtue, the highest pa- 
tience and charity in bearing the contradic- 
tions of an ungrateful people are everywhere 
evident. He displays a most admirable in- 
genuity in narrating his own and his fam- 
ily's errors. 

Moses never flattered the vices of men, 



— 46 — 

never sought the favor of the people, but 
rather imposed upon them the heaviest laws 
and hardest yokes. He often very severely 
reproached them with their rebellion, im- 
piety and crimes. He never emploj^ed venal 
and fraudulent witnesses, but challenged 
the public faith and testimony of all the 
people. His style was simple, apt and full 
of modesty. He has everywhere showm 
himself a candid and truthful author and 
dissipated all suspicion of fraud, so that it 
is very apparent that he did not aim to de- 
ceive. 

Besides the facts described in the Penta- 
teuch were so public, so intimately coherent 
among themselves, so bound up with the 
lives and fortunes of the people of Israel, 
that it was an utter impossibility for Moses 
to deceive them even if he desired to do so. 

All the Israelites were as familiar from 
tradition and other monuments w^th the 
historic matter of Genesis as Moses him- 
self, and it was of extreme importance to 
them to preserve an exact knowledge of the 
things recorded in it because of their great 
interest to themselves, embracing the prom- 
ises made by God to the Patriarchs. In 
fine all their hopes were reposed in it, and 
in it, too, the reason given even for their 
submission to the hardship of circumcision. 

Neither could Moses deceive theni in 



— 47- 

what pertains to the historic matter of the 
other books : The plagues of Egypt ; the 
crossing of the Red Sea ; the giving of the 
law on Sinai ; the Manna from heaven de- 
scending for forty years in the desert and 
feeding the people. All the people were 
witnesses to these things. If these alleged 
facts were but fictions Moses persuaded an 
innumerable multitude of people that they 
saw things they did not really see. He 
persuaded the Israelites that they had 
crossed the Red Sea when they did not 
cross it, that they ate Manna for forty years 
when they did not eat it, that they remained 
in the desert in which they never were, that 
they received the law from Moses when 
they did not receive it. It would be neces- 
sary to admit all this if Moses has falsely 
written. 

Moses imposed hard laws on the Israel- 
ites, indeed most difficult of observance, 
claiming God as their author. On one oc- 
casion he punished with death a number of 
people who neglected a prescription of the 
law. The Israelites would never submit to 
such hardships from an impostor. Moses 
certainly could not have deceived the He- 
brews in these matters, even if he wished 
to do so. 

Uncorrupted. — The Pentateuch has 
come down to us entire and uncorrupted. 



— 48 — 

For the same public faith and tradition of 
the whole Jewish nation that through all 
generations proved the Pentateuch the gen- 
uine work of Moses prove also that it has 
come down to our time whole and uncor- 
rupted. The whole nation was persuaded 
that it was the work of Moses, received 
from him by their fathers, neither w^as any- 
thing ever added to nor taken away by 
them of all the things written down by 
Moses. 

Therefore, if this public faith and con- 
stant tradition invincibly prove the Mosaic 
authenticity of the Pentateuch, by an equal 
right they prove its integrity. And indeed 
no possible vestige of corruption has ever 
been or can be detected. 

If the Jews wished to corrupt the Pen- 
tateuch, they would certainly eliminate 
those portions where they are upbraided 
for their lies, disobedience to God, crimes 
and impieties. But this clearly has not 
been done by them. Nor has the Penta- 
teuch been interpolated by the Jew^s. They 
would not dare to do it. They held it in 
such supreme veneration that they would 
not under any circumstances dare to trifle 
with it. And even if they wished to cor- 
rupt the text, they could not successfully 
do so, for the Pentateuch was in the hands 
of all, was read every seventh year publiclv 



— 49 — 

to the people, the priests and Levites had 
charge of it. From this book was drawn 
the knowledge of all that pertained to the 
government of the Jewish pnblic affairs, in 
it is described the whole pnblic worship. 
Books so pnblic conld not possibly be ma- 
nipnlated by a few persons ; and it wonld be 
ntterly impossible for all the mnltitndes to 
consent to so grave a thing as its corrup- 
tion. 

Here is the testimony of Josephns : " For 
we have not an innumerable multitude of 
books among us, disagreeing from and con- 
tradicting one another (as the Greeks have), 
but only twenty-two books, which contain 
the records of all the past times ; which are 
justly believed to be divine ; and of them, 
five belong to Moses, w^hich contain his laws, 
and the traditions of the origin of mankind 
till his death. And how firmly we have 
given credit to those books of our own na- 
tion is evident by what we do ; for during so 
many ages as have already passed, no one 
has been so bold as either to add anything to 
them or take anything from them, or to make 
any change in them ; but it becomes natural 
to all Jews, immediately and from their very 
birth, to esteem those books to contain divine 
doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if 
occasion be, willingly to die for them." 
(Flavins Josephns against Apion, i-8.) 



— 50 — 

Thus tradition, the consent of the Jewish 
race, its own internal evidence, its language, 
the harmony of its versions, profane authors, 
its historic truth and the impossibility of its 
corruption, all bear testimony to the fact 
that the Pentateuch is the work of the in- 
spired pen of Moses. 



Chapter III. 
'inspiration. 

Inspiration is derived from the Latin, In- 
spiratio (in, in, and spirare, to breathe), and 
literally signifies the act of breathing in or 
infusing. Webster defines it as: '^ Specific- 
ally, a supernatural divine influence on the 
prophets, apostles, or sacred waiters, by 
which they were qualified to communicate 
moral or religious truth with authority ; a 
,miraculous influence which qualifies men to 
receive and communicate divine truth. 'A// 
Scripture is given by inspiratio7i of God,^ 2 
Tim. Ill, 16.'^ 

In connection with the Holy Scriptures 
inspiration means a supernatural influence 
of the Holy Ghost upon an author, moving 
him to write and so directing his mind while 
he writes that he cannot err. He pens only 



-51- 

the things which God wills and hence his 
writings may be trnly said to be the word 
of God. 

Inspiration is then an act of God moving 
the will of the writer and impelling him to 
write, directing him while he writes, as well 
in the choice of the material as in its dis- 
position, so much so that he pens precisely 
what God wishes him and nothing more, 
even though other things may have been 
divinely revealed to him or may be most cer- 
tainly known to him from other sources. 

In inspiration the motion of the will to 
write, and the enlightening of the intellect, 
by which both errors are avoided and un- 
known truths revealed which God wishes to 
disclose, are distinctly required. 

By this enlightenment the light of natural 
reason is not destroyed, but divine light is 
infused, the intellect is so perfected that 
without danger of error it knows these 
things which by natural means came to its 
knowledge, and is able to perceive those 
things which were previously inscrutable to 
it. The intellect can be illuminated by 
God in various ways ; through revelation 
as in ecstasy, through the imagination, as 
often happened to the prophets, or by speech, 
or by external vision, or by internal revela- 
tions in dreams. And this illumination is 
given to the writer either of things previ- 



— 52 — 

ously unknown to him, as in the case of 
the prophets, or he is simply directed in a 
choice of things, and rendered free from 
error in reciting what is otherwise known 
to him when a special revelation is not nec- 
essary. 

This supernatural motion of inspiration 
does not take away or even impair the free 
will of the writer. The liberty of the writer 
remains under inspiration, as the prophet's 
under the gift of prophecy and man's under 
efficacious grace^ That motion does not ex- 
clude natural media, but adds to natural 
causes as the will is carried or exalted to 
the supernatural order. 

Therefore the inspired writer is not free 
from the labor which every writer sustains 
in writing: ^^And as to ourselves indeed, 
in undertaking this work of abridging, we 
have taken in hand no easy task, yea rather 
a business full of watching and sweat.'' (ii 
Mach. II, 27.) ^^ Forasmuch as many have 
taken in hand to set forth in order a narra- 
tion of the things that have been accom- 
plished among us : according as they have 
delivered them unto us, who from the be- 
ginning were eye-witnesses and ministers 
of the word : it seemed good to me also, 
having diligently attained to all things from 
the beginning, to write to thee in order, 
most excellent Theophilus." (Luke I, 1-3.) 



— 53 — 

The simple assistance of the Holy Ghost 
does not siifl&ce for inspiration ; something 
more is reqnired, some excitement or im- 
pulse of the Holy Spirit. 

There must be suitable testimony to show 
that a writer was inspired. It will not suf- 
fice for the author himself to assert it, for 
he may be deceived. We must have such 
testimony as cannot possibly lead us into 
error or be impugned. Such as the testi- 
mony of Christ, His Apostles, the Church, 
the Holy Fathers or the unanimous consent 
of all of these. 

The mere assistance, '^ assistentia,'' of the 
Holy Ghost must be distinguished from in- 
spiration. Inspiration is something posi- 
tive, whereas this ^^ assistentia '^ is a merely 
negative idea. The ecumenical or general 
councils of the church have had the assist- 
ance of the Holy Ghost to protect them 
from error, and still they are not classed 
with the inspired writings. 

A special impulse of the Holy Ghost to 
write and also to write on particular sub- 
jects over and above protection, is required 
for inspiration. 

A distinction must be also made between 
revelation and inspiration. In revelation 
God reveals to a person truths unknown 
before, without moving that person to com- 
mit the things thus revealed to writing. 



-54 — 

The inspired writer on the other hand has 
received the impnlse to write and is directed 
by divine inflnence in his work, bnt it is 
not necessary that any unknown or new 
truths be revealed or communicated to him. 
It is probable, for instance, that the author 
of the book of Esther required no revela- 
tion, as he could have known everything 
therein contained from ordinary channels. 

Again, revelation need not necessarily be 
committed to writing; it can be transmit- 
ted to posterity by the living voice through 
tradition ; inspiration, however, regards 
writings altogether. 

A work composed by mere human indus- 
try and afterward declared by the Holy 
Ghost through the mouth - piece of the 
church to be free from error cannot be said 
to be inspired. A work of this kind can- 
not be regarded as inspired, however per- 
fect it may be and however free from error, 
because the Holy Ghost had no special con- 
nection with its origin. There is wanting 
the impulse of the Holy Ghost to write, 
and His supervision while being written, 
the Holy Ghost merely approving it when 
already finished. 

According to some exegetists in those 
historical portions of the Scriptures where 
the sacred penman relates facts already 
known to him either as having himself 



— r>.^ — 

witnessed them or learned tliem from per- 
fectly reliable testimonj^, inspiration re- 
quires only a simple superintendence of the 
Holy Ghost to guard against mistake in 
detailing such facts. This opinion, how- 
ever, falls short of what is required for in- 
spiration. The claim here for inspiration 
is no stronger than for the decrees of the 
general councils which, although not con- 
sidered inspired, still have the assistance of 
the Holy Ghost to secure them from error. 
The whole substance of the Scriptures must 
have been suggested by the Holy Ghost, 
even where the subject was already known 
to the author. Where the matter was al- 
ready known to the writer a simple sugges- 
tion of what he should write suffices ; rev- 
elation only being necessary when there is 
question of something previously unknown 
to him. 

It may be said that the mode, degree and 
extent of inspiration are all subjects of dis- 
pute. The church has here passed no 
judgment and only claims that the canoni- 
cal books are all and in every part inspired. 

The advocates of pleiiaiy inspiration as- 
sert that every verse, word, syllable and 
letter of the Bible is the inspired and the 
direct utterance of the Most High. The 
sacred penmen were as pieces of mechanism 
moved by the fingers of God. Their dif- 



— 56 — 

ferent styles or modes of expression are to 
be regarded as only different tones of the 
same musical instrument produced by one 
only artist. Accordingly God is everything 
in the Scriptures, and the writers merely 
passive vehicles. The words of Holy Writ 
are as much the divine language as if God 
himself spoke them in His proper person. 
The differences found in the sacred books 
arise from no individual quality of the 
writer, but flow from the diverse aims and 
uses with which they are employed by the 
Holy Ghost. 

Hence it is contended that inspiration is 
intermitting, so that the divine afflatus 
seizes the soul at certain moments and at 
others abandons it. Thus for instance the 
words of St. Paul ordinarily may not have 
possessed any special authority, w^hile his 
epistles on the other hand must be looked 
upon as inspired. Plenary inspiration 
claims that the Scriptures are faultless in 
form, essence, spirit and letter; and per- 
fectly divine and accurate in morals, dogmia, 
history and narrative. 

Again, many exegetists of very great 
authority contend for the VERBAL inspira- 
tion of the sacred Scriptures, claiming that 
the individual words are the subject of in- 
spiration. 

Another opinion, held by Saints August- 



ine, Jerome and Alplionsus and said by 
Ivibermann to be the common opinion of 
theologians, is that the very words have 
not been inspired, but only the sense and 
substance, particularly in the moral lessons 
and in the historical and narrative parts of 
the Sacred Books. This is the safest and 
strongest ground upon which inspiration 
can be maintained. Nor is this opinion in 
any way derogatory to the dignity and 
authority of the Bible as an inspired book. 

The advocates of verbal inspiration en- 
counter great difficulties in defending their 
position, which this opinion at once removes. 

This view of inspiration would account 
for the necessity, of which the sacred writers 
were convinced, of using care and diligence 
in their work, and why the author of the 
II Machabees asks pardon for his defects in 
style. This view is also perfectly consist- 
ent with the fact that the Bible is a mass 
of documents of different authors and of 
great antiquity and its text, owing to the 
great number and human frailty of amanu- 
enses, has undergone the usual changes at- 
tending the transmission of historical docu- 
ments, and marked by the usual inequalities 
and varieties of style that we meet with in 
any other collection of ancient literature, and 
presents in many cases peculiar difficulties 
and differences in details, and scientific and 



— 58 — 

historical errors, and even contradictions in 
slight and trivial matters not connected with 
the spirit or snbstance of the general narra- 
tive, and this is particularly applicable to 
the New Testament in its quotations from 
the Old. 

These trivial inaccuracies in no way in- 
validate the substantial veracit}^ of the sa- 
cred Scripture. They are indeed- really but 
a most striking witness to its truthfulness. 
They show that trifling indeed are the faults 
discerned in this wonderful book by the 
awful microscope of a thousand years of 
criticism. Such slight discrepancies are 
the mere freedoms which writers, thor- 
oughly honest, and animated with a high 
interest that overlooks trifles, permit them- 
selves. 

Still they must be recognized as human 
imperfections that have crept into the sa- 
cred text and go to prove that the very word 
of the Bible cannot, without grave difficulty, 
be regarded as inspired. 

The mere reading of the sacred Scripture 
irresistibly impresses one with the fact of 
its inspiration. It bears its own divine 
witness and its meaning shines forth with 
a divine power and lustre, such as invest 
no other book. The efficacy and sublimity 
and heavenly truth of doctrine, majesty of 
style, harmony of parts, wonderful preser- 



— 59 — 

vation and miraculous effects show impres- 
sively the hand of God. 

The Bible is a message from God to Man. 
The letter or word is nothing, the meaning 
is everything. The divine spirit in the 
Bible makes itself felt, shines out in everj^ 
page of it ; and this is inspiration in the 
highest sense, the mind of God meeting 
our minds in the sacred text, enlightening, 
guiding, elevating, purifying them. 

But if we admit slight errors in the 
Scripture, why may it not all be imperfect 
or erroneous ? The sufficient answer is 
that it is not so, that judged by the very 
same critical tests which detect such errors, 
the Bible remains an entirely unique and 
essentially perfect book. 

In the Bible itself there are many pas- 
sages claiming for it inspiration, such as 
Exod. XVII, 14 ; Jer. XXX, 2 ; Habac. II ; 
Daniel XII, 4; Dent. XXXI, 19; Ezech. 
XXIV; I Paral. XXIX, 29; II Paral. 
XXVI, 22. 

The Jews universallj^ believed in the in- 
spiration of their scriptures as is very evi- 
dent from many witnesses, among others 
Philo and the Thalmud, and particularly 
from the testimony of Josephus : " Because 
every one is not permitted of his own ac- 
cord to be a writer, nor is there any disa- 
greement in what is written ; they being 



— 60 — 

only prophets that have written the origi- 
nal and earliest accounts of things as they 
learned them of God himself by inspira- 
tion ; and others have written what hath 
happened in their own times, and that in a 
very distinct manner also. 

For we have not an innumerable multi- 
tude of books among us, disagreeing from 
and contradicting one another (as the Greeks 
have), but only twenty-two books, which 
contain the records of all the past times ; 
which are justly believed to be divine ; and 
of them, five belong to Moses, which con- 
tain his laws, and the traditions of the ori- 
gin of mankind till his death. And how 
firmly we have given credit to those books 
of our nation is evident by what we do ; 
for during so many ages as have already 
passed, no one has been so bold as either 
to add anything to them or take anything 
from them, or to make any change in 
them ; but it becomes natural to all Jews, 
immediately and from their very birth, to 
esteem those books to contain divine doc- 
trines, and to persist in them., and, if occa- 
sion be, willingly to die for them.'' Josephus 
against Apion, I, 7-8. 

Our Lord bears testimonj^ to the inspira- 
tion of the Old Testament: Matt. V, 18; 
John V, 46 ; Luke XXIV, 27 ; Luke XXIV, 
44. 



— 61 — 

The i\postles have in many places praised 
the Old Testament and given its author- 
ship to God: Act. Ill, i8 ; Rom. i, 2 ; ii 
Pet. I, 21 ; Rom. Ill, 2; 11 Tim. Ill, 15. 

But the real proof for the Inspiration of 
the Bible is the infallible testimon}^ of the 
Church. It can be clearly shown that the 
Church has always taught the Inspiration 
of the Scriptures. 

The holy fathers bear witness to the 
teaching of the early church regarding the 
belief in inspiration. It would be an end- 
less task to quote from their works concern- 
ing their faith in inspiration, as they may 
be literally said to be a unit on this point. 

St. Clement of Rome in Sec. 13 of his first 
epistle to the Corinthians, St. Polycarp in 
his epistle to the Ephesians ; St. Justin in 
his Apology, St. Irenseus in the 47th Chap- 
ter of his second book against Heresies, St. 
Clement of Alexandria, Origin, St. Cyprian, 
St. Athansius, St. Augustine, Athenagoras, 
Theophilus, Tertullian, Gregory Nazianzen, 
Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Chrysostom, St. Am- 
brose, St. Hilary, St. Gregory the Great and 
Theodoret speak of Biblical inspiration. 

Subsequent to the time of the fathers the 
church has manifested her teaching concern- 
ing, the inspiration of the Bible by her gen- 
eral councils. This is more particularly 
true of the decrees of the fourth session of 



— 62 — 

the Council of Trent. And although she 
has not passed judgment upon the manner 
or extent of inspiration it has been ever her 
public and unanimous sense that the sacred 
Scriptures have been divinely inspired in 
their every part as in their entire contents. 

The Church could not err in teaching 
that the Scriptures are inspired because her 
founder, Christ, promised her the guidance 
of the Holy Ghost and that she could in no 
way fail or fall into error in her teachings. 
She cannot hence err in teaching the inspi- 
ration of the Bible for this is a matter of 
grave importance, indeed a matter of faith. 
Hence the Church cannot err in teaching 
the inspiration of the Sacred Books. 

Nor is this arguing in a vicious circle, as 
some critics claim. They say that we prove 
the inspiration of the Bible by the infallible 
authority of the Church, and the infallibility 
of the Church from the inspiration of the 
Bible. This is not true. We first take the 
New Testament as a historic record without 
in the least attributing to it inspiration. 
We regard the evangelists simply in their 
character of true and honest historians. 
The miracles they record prove the divinity 
of Our Lord, that He was truly the Son of 
God, the promised Messiah. 

He established a Church and promised to 
be with her all days even to the end of the 



— 63 — 

world, and that the gates of hell should not 
prevail against her, in a word, he promised 
her infallibility in her teaching. 

This infallibility being thus established 
she cannot fail in her doctrines and so can- 
not err in teaching the inspiration of the 
Sacred Books. 



Chapter IV. ' 

SOME DIFFICULTIES SOI.VED. 

Elohim and Jehovah. — During the last 
few centuries the authenticity of the Pen- 
tateuch has been often called into dispute. 
Critics have denied to Moses its authorship 
on one ground or another. They were 
moved to this by various motives. Some 
attacked its authenticity to show their ex- 
egetical acumen, some to display their 
knowledge of Orientalism and others to 
gain notoriety by connecting their name 
with a work so immortal and imperishable. 

It would be an absolute miracle to have 
the authenticity of a work of its momen- 
tous interest pass unchallenged. 

The authenticity of every great literary 
work has been at one time or another dis- 
puted. Shakespeare is but a few hundred 
years dead, and his very existence has been 



— 64- 

denied. His great work has been credited 
to many authors. One critic, even, has 
asserted that he had discovered a cipher in 
the work itself, giving its authorship to 
Francis Bacon. 

In the earlier chapters of Genesis God is 
called Elohim (Almighty), and in the later, 
Jehovah (Everlasting). From this it is de- 
clared by some critics that the Pentateuch 
was compiled by an author much later than 
Moses, principally from two very ancient 
documents called the Elohistic and Jeho- 
vistic. The simple fact that God was called 
by different names in different parts of the 
Pentateuch would not militate against its 
Mosaic authenticity. There is no reason 
why the same author could not have called 
God by different names in different places 
in his work. Moses, in composing his 
work, might have employed some very an- 
cient manuscripts. In these God might 
have received different appellations by the 
different authors, and Moses might have 
retained through courtesy the names used 
by these predecessors. 

To-day we give God a variety of names, 
the Almighty, Divine Providence, Infinite 
Goodness and many others. 

Nor is Elohim confined entirely to the 
first part of Genesis and Jehovah to the last, 
the terms are frequently interchanged ; in 



— Go — 

the account of the Deluge Jehovah is used 
in the eighth verse of the sixth chapter, 
and in the first and fifth verses of the sev- 
enth chapter. Both names are used in the 
sixteenth verse of the seventh chapter. 
Also in the narrative of the sacrifice of 
Isaac, Elohim is used first and Jehovah 
shortly after. The names are also used al- 
ternately in the history of Joseph and in 
the exhortation of Moses to the people in 
Deuteronomy. 

ESDRAS. — Many Rationalists give the 
authorship of the Pentateuch to Bsdras, 
claiming that he compiled it from the 
Elohistic and Jehovistic documents already 
mentioned. The Blohistic document is 
said to come down from a very ancient au- 
thor, who gave to God the appellation of 
Elohim and the Jehovistic from one who 
gave Him the name of Jehovah. 

But if Esdras had himself compiled this 
work, which contains so many rites and in- 
stitutions, including their whole life, as well 
civil as domestic, so intimately connected 
with religion, and which also contains so 
many reproaches and threats and which im- 
posed such a hard yoke upon them, how 
could he then for the first time persuade 
the Jews to accept it all upon his sole as- 
sertion if never heard of before? 

If Esdras composed these books, it cer- 

5 



— 6G — 

tainly was after the return of the Israelites 
from captivity ; but long before this time 
the Jews had the Pentateuch, for the priests 
and levites were already established in their 
office. Besides Esdras himself testifies to 
a prior existence of the book of Moses, 
(i Esdr. Ill, 2; I Esdr. VI, 18.) 

Ivong before the captivity, Jeremiah al- 
ludes to the Law of Moses, under which 
name the Pentateuch is always designated 
in the Old Testament. The Samaritan 
Pentateuch, moreover, existed long previ- 
ously, so that Esdras could not have com- 
posed the Pentateuch from Elohistic and 
Jehovistic documents. 

The spirit, tone, language, and all those 
smaller peculiarities of the Pentateuch 
already mentioned prove the utter improba- 
bility of the authorship of Esdras ; and 
besides he never could have been able to 
avoid so skillfully his own individual man- 
ner and style, as it appears in his own book. 

Helcias. — Other Rationalists place the 
composition of the Pentateuch in the time 
of King Josias, and endeavor to establish 
this opinion from things narrated in the 
books of Kings and Paralipomenon, that a 
volume of the Law was found in the temple 
by the high priest Helcias. It was desired, 
they say, to move the King and people to 
penance by the reading of this book, which 



— 67 — 

could not have been known before, they 
assert, because it did not previously exist. 
But just the very contrary appears from the 
narration itself. In the iSth year of the 
reign of Josias, when builders were restoring 
portions of the temple, Helcias the high- 
priest found a book of the Law in the House 
of the Lord, and said to the scribe Saphan, 
^^ I have found a book of the Law in the 
House of the Lord,'' and gave it to him. 
He took the volume to the King and related 
the circumstance to him. The King read 
it and was moved to penance and he brought 
together in the temple the priests, levites 
and all the people and had the volume read 
to them. It had a great effect upon all, 
moved them to observe the precepts and 
and ceremonies contained in the book and 
particularly caused them to renounce idola- 
try. ^^ And in the eighteenth year of King 
Josias, the King sent Saphan, the son of 
Aslia,. the son of Messulam, the scribe of 
the temple of the Lord, saying to him : Go 
to Helcias, the high-priest. . . . And Hel- 
cias the high-priest said to Saphan, the 
scribe : I have found the book of the Law 
in the house of the Lord : and Helcias gave 
the book to Saphan, and he read it. And 
Saphan the scribe came to the King, and 
brought him word again concerning what 
he had commanded. . . . And Saphan, the 



— 68 — 

scribe, told the King, saying: Helcias the 
priest hath delivered to me a book. And 
when Saphan had read it before the King, 
and the King had heard the words of the 
book of the Law of the Lord, he rent his 
garments. And he commanded Helcias the 
priest, and Ahicam, the son of Saphan, and 
Achobor, the son of Micha, and Saphan the 
scribe, and Asaia the King's servant, say- 
ing : Go and consnlt the Lord for me, and 
for the people, and for all Juda, concerning 
the words of this book, w^hich is fonnd : for 
the great wrath of the Lord is kindled 
against ns, because our fathers have not 
hearkened to the words of this book, to do 
all that is written for us.'' (IV Kings XXII. 
3, 8, 9, lo, II, 12, 13, 14.) 

This narrative does not in any way im- 
pugn the Mosaic authenticity of the Penta- 
teuch. It does not presume to say that 
Helcias composed, but found the book, so 
that, certainly, it must have existed previ- 
ously. A new book just then found and 
heard of for the first time could not have 
moved the people in this manner. This 
effect on the people proves the genuineness 
of the book, that it must have had the au- 
thority of Moses and so of God himself 
to be able to thus move the people from 
idolatry. 

Before the time of Josias all things con- 



-69 — 

tained in the Pentateticli were most perfect- 
ly known. Frequent references being made 
in the Prophets, Kings, Judges and Josue 
to the laws, facts and miracles recorded in 
the Pentateuch. 

That Helcias should have been the real 
author of the Pentateuch, as these Rational- 
ists assert, w^ould imply a complicity in 
forging the book, not only on the part of 
Jeremiah, the prophetess Holda, and the 
elders, but almost of the whole people, 
among whom, on the contrar}^, there certain- 
h^ seems to have been living a very vivid 
tradition of the former existence of the 
Pentateuch. Moreover, had it been first 
w^ritten in those days, there would certainly 
have been introduced into it a pedigree and 
origin of the House of David, differing 
from the incestuous one given in Genesis. 
Deuteronomy would have changed its lan- 
guage considerably about Royalt}^ ; and 
Joseph^s would not have stood out so promi- 
nently as a favored tribe. 

Moses in the Pentateuch speaks of him- 
self in the third person, but this is no un- 
usual thing for an author writing about 
events of which he himself formed the chief 
part. Csesar, Xenophon, Esdras, Mathew^, 
John and Josephus have done the same thingo 

That Moses called himself the meekest of 
men was not in a spirit of boasting, but to 



— 70 — 

show that the chastisements which he in- 
flicted were not prompted by anger or re- 
venge, bnt by justice and God's command, 
and if he sometimes mentions his virtues he 
does not forget to also name his faults. 

At the close of the Pentateuch reference 
is made to the death of Moses, but this part 
is taken from the beginning of the book of 
Josue, with which it w^as formerl}^ joined. 

It is claimed that a portion of Deuter- 
onomy was written after the Israelites 
reached Canaan, from the use of a preposi- 
tion which seems to signifj^ beyond : '' These 
are the words which Moses spoke to all 
Israel beyond the Jordan. '^ The Hebrew 
preposition used in the text can be rendered 
by either beyond or on this side (transvel 
citra), and evidently regards the bank of the 
Jordan and has no reference whatever to 
Canaan. 

Apparently there is a mistake in chronol- 
ogy between Bsau and Saul, but this arises 
from the mention of the leaders of tribes 
who flourished simultaneously and not suc- 
cessively. 

Many names of places are found in the 
Pentateuch, which are said to have been 
given to them only long after the time of 
Moses. The mention of the city of Dan, 
so called onl)^ after the conquest by that 
tribe, and the enumeration of towns built 



or enlarged by the tribes of Gad and 
Reuben, which could not have happened in 
the time of Moses, are cited particularly as 
instances of this. 

These towns or villages may have all ex- 
isted in the time of Moses, but under other 
names, and the commentators and tran- 
scribers for the sake of clearness have used 
and inserted the names under which these 
places were known in their own day. 

The author speaks of the institution of 
the Levites and uses the expression " up to 
this day/' and others similar, ^^ Now the 
Canaanite was at that time in the land ; '' 
" and at that time the Canaanite and Pher- 
ezite dwelled in that country.'' Moses 
could as well speak in that v/ay as St. 
Matthew could say (XXVII, 8,) " For this 
cause that field was called Haceldama, that 
is, the field of blood, even to this day." 

There are some fifty passages contained 
in the Pentateuch, which would appear to 
place the writer later than the time of 
Moses. These are, however, evidently 
the work of annotators and transcribers. 
Things have crept into the original text in 
this way by interpolation. Many things 
may have been added by way of commentary, 
note or explanation, first written on the 
margin and afterwards embodied and incor- 
porated into the text. This can be con- 



— 72 — 

ceded without iiijur}^ to the real substantial 
Mosaic authenticitj^ These notes have 
been added from time to time by annota- 
tors for the sake of clearness and particu- 
larly in regard to obsolete words or old 
towns with new names. This has fre- 
quently happened in regard to the works 
of the great profane authors without in the 
least thereb}^ injuring their title to authen- 
ticity, neither should it be regarded as in 
any way detrimental to the Mosaic author- 
ship of the Pentateuch. 

The Pentateuch was composed by Moses 
in the nature of a diarj^ He dotted down 
things as they struck him at different 
times. He may not have always strictly re- 
garded the chronological order of events, 
and may have dotted down the same things 
at different times and under different cir- 
cumstances, in different words and phrase- 
ology, and so have made repetitions. 

Such is the character . of a diary. The 
finding of repetitions in the Pentateuch does 
not argue different authors any more than 
the repetition of the account of the conver- 
sion of St. Paul argues several authors for 
the Acts of the Apostles. 

That the style is at one time concise and 
at another profuse, and the language of un- 
equal flow is not against the authorship of 
Moses. The Pentateuch appears to be made 



— 73 - 

up from fragments, because Moses consulted 
dijBFerent sources for his information, partic- 
ularly in writing Genesis. Diversity of 
style was caused by diversity of times and 
things. His style in the prime of manhood 
must have naturally differed from that of 
his old age. He must have also used one 
style in describing laws and another in ex- 
horting and threatening the people. 

That the numbers of the people and the 
cattle do not in places seem to conform to 
the laws of natural increase or even to what 
the geometrical limitations demanded, and 
other seeming contradictions that show them- 
selves in the Pentateuch, are merely appar- 
ent difficulties, as can be easily shown. 

Dr. Davidson gives as a reason that Moses 
did not write the Pentateuch, that he was 
emphatically a law-giver and an actor, and 
not a historian. Csesar was a legislator and 
actor and still he wrote his Commentaries. 
Grant was an actor and emphatically no 
talker or writer, and yet he has given us 
his Memoirs. 

Moses may not have intended to write a 
history of his times, but the matter of the 
Pentateuch was furnished by his pen, and 
no vicissitude of time or effort of critic will 
take from its character as the Diary of 
Moses. 

Some of the most serious difficulties urged 



— 74 — 

against the Pentateuch ^ and indeed the Bible, 
are proposed by the votaries of what is 
known as the '' Higher Criticism. '^ This is 
the latest and most insidions method of 
criticism and hence the following chapter 
will be devoted to its consideration. 



Chapter V. 

THE HIGHER CRITICISM. 

Three different methods of criticism have 
been used to combat the inspiration of the 
Bible and eliminate the snpernatnral from 
its pages. The first method was to explain 
away the miracles of the Scriptnre in a 
natural manner; to reduce the seemingly 
miraculous to the merely marvelous ; and 
the predictions of the inspired prophets to 
shrewd but vague forecastings on a par 
value with the prognostications of our own 
w^eather prophets. In fact, this method 
undertakes to furnish a human key for the 
solution of all Biblical mysteries. 

The Star of Bethlehem was for instance 
a natural conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. 
The dividing of the w^aters of the Red Sea 
was occasioned opportunely and without any 
supernatural intervention by the blowang of 
a high wdnd and the restoring to their place 



-75- 

of the waters that engulfed Pharoah and 
liis cohorts by the ceasing of the storm. 

The prophets were merely very sagacious 
statesmen, who foretold in highly poetical 
language future events from their keen ob- 
servations of the course of things in the 
past. 

The German Rationalists, represented b}- 
Paulus and Eichhorn, adopted this method. 
The genuineness of the books of the Bible 
was not in the least assailed, but their in- 
spiration and supernatural character were 
completely impugned. 

The second method of criticism is to deny 
absolutely the veracity and good faith of 
the writers of the sacred books. The critics 
of this class assert that the Bible miracles 
were impositions and the prophets conscious 
frauds. They scoff at the supernatural, de- 
clare all religion a fraud and designate the 
faithful believers as the dupes of a selfish, 
designing and interested priesthood. Vol- 
taire, Thomas Paine and Robert IngersoU 
are the color-bearers of this critical school. 
These are the most shallow of all the crit- 
ics. Their knowledge of the Bible and of 
science is both superficial and limited. 
Their weapons are raillery, chicanery and 
sneering. 

The third method is that of the so-called 
higher criticism, which denies the genuine- 



— 76— 

ness of the sacred books. This system ac- 
knowledges the honesty and sincerity of the 
writers of the sacred volnmes and confesses 
that they meant to afhrm that miracles 
w^ere really performed and prophecies tit- 
tered. These critics claim, however, that a 
great length of time had elapsed between 
the recording of the miracles and their 
alleged occurrence. That they are not at- 
tested by contemporaries and eye-witnesses, 
but by persons living long subsequently, 
and that the prophecies were not committed 
to writing until after their fulfillment. 
Hence legends and fictions from long repe- 
tition had been formally received as absolute 
truths and the writers simply transmitted 
the mistaken belief of their own times. 

The real aim of this criticism is to show 
that the age and authorship ascribed to the 
sacred volumes are not correct and must be 
referred to an origin altogether different 
from that heretofore claimed for them. 

Wellhausen, Kuenen and Duhm may be 
cited as fair representatives of this modern 
school of criticism. According to professor 
Julius Wellhausen the Pentateuch or Hexa- 
tench, as he prefers to call it, as embracing 
the Book of Josue, in its present form, is 
the result of a post-exilic sacerdotal move- 
ment tending to substitute what he calls 
the '^priestly code'^ for the primitive insti- 



— 77 — 

tution, with the object of offering under 
the prestige of antiquity an effectual re- 
sistance to national disintegration. The 
theory is based upon an analysis of the 
Pentateuch legislation, in which he finds 
the more distinctive sacerdotal enactments 
attributed to Moses to be more recent, both 
in language and character, than the rest of 
the legislation, and in some cases incom- 
patible with it. 

That the books of the Pentateuch are of 
a heterogeneous character; are in part re- 
productions of older documents ; that there 
would seem to have been an interest in- 
volved in, and an opportunity given for, 
their late invention ; do but constitute at 
most a suspicion based upon a probability, 
which those who have grounds of credence 
distinct from the intrinsic character of the 
document may be permitted to put aside. 

The great thing about Wellhausen is his 
imagination. He has a wonderfully exuber- 
ant fancy which has enabled him to pro- 
duce histories devoid absolutely of a single 
fact that ever positively existed. 

The authorship of Moses is impugned 
because he speaks of himself in the third 
person. But Isaiah (VII, 3), Jeremiah 
(XXXVI, 4), Hosea (i, 2), and the Evan- 
gelist John (XIII, 23), and Matthew (IX, 9) 
do the very same thing without the slightest 



suspicion of injuring thereby the genuine- 
ness of their authorship. 

The authorship of Moses is also called in 
question because in (Num. XII, 3) he sajs 
of himself: " For Moses was a man exceed- 
ing meek above all men that dwelt upon 
earth.'' Moses here draws attention to his 
great meekness from no spirit of boastful- 
ness or vain-glory, but with the same 
impartialit}^ with which he names his draw- 
backs, such as the disobedience which ex- 
cluded him from the Promised Land and 
his neglect to circumcise his child. 

In a like spirit St. Paul says of himself : 
^^I labored more abundantly than they all,'' 
and St. Johu styles himself: " The disciple 
whom Jesus loved." 

It is claimed that Deuteronomy was writ- 
ten in the reign of Josiali or very shortly 
before. Wellhausen says (Brit. Ency. Vol. 
XVIII, page 508): ^^That the author of 
Deuteronomy had the Jehovistic work before 
him is also admitted; and it is pretty well 
agreed that the latter is referred, alike by 
the character of its language and the circle 
of its ideas and by express references (Gen. 
XII, 6, XXXVI, 31, XXXIV, 10; Num. 
XXII ; Dent. XXXIV, 10), to the golden 
age of Hebrew Literature, the same which 
has given us the finest parts of the books of 
Judges, Samuel, and Kings, and the oldest 



— 79 — 

extant prophetical writings, — the age of the 
kings and prophets, before the dissolution of 
the sister states of Israel and Jndah.'' 

How under any possible shadow of veri- 
similitude can Deuteronomy be referred to 
the age of Josiah when it is filled with in- 
junctions to exterminate the Canaanites 
(XX, 16-18) and the Amalekites (XXV, 
17 - 19) who had ages before disappeared? 

Laws are not framed to regulate a state 
of things Avhich have long passed away, and 
can never possibly be revived. At the period 
in which the code of Deuteronomy is claimed 
to have been composed, about the time of 
Josiah, the Jews were hard pressed to repel 
the incursions of Egypt and Babylon, and 
it certainly would be utterly absurd to en- 
act a law contemplating foreign conquests 
as in (Dent. XX, 10-15); and another 
favoring Bdom (Deut. XXIII, 7-8) against 
Moab and Ammon (XXIII, 3-4) would 
precisely suit the time of Moses, but not 
that of the Kings. 

About the time of Josiah the prophets 
were struggling hard to dissuade the people . 
from forming any association with the Egyp- 
tians (Isai. XXX, I, XXXI, i ; Jen II. 18), 
whereas in (Deut. XXIII, 7) there is a 
strong command given to them to maintain 
friendly relations with the Egyptians. 

The references in Deuteronomy to Egypt 



— 80 — 

imply a recent residence in it, the Egyptian 
bondage and deliverance from it are cited 
as motives of gratitude to the Lord, (Dent. 
XIII, 5 ; XX, I ; Lev. XIX, 36 ; XXVI, 13 ; 
Num. XV, 41 ; Dent. VII, 15 ; XXVIII, 60.) 

If anything could serve to show the su- 
preme absurdity of referring the Deutero- 
nomic code to the time of Josiah it is that 
while (Dent. XVII, 14) contemplating the 
possible selection of a king in future, the 
code makes not the slightest allusion to an 
actual kingly government, but places the 
supreme executive authority in a judge and 
the priesthood (Dent. XVII, 8-12 ; XIX, 
17); declaring that the king must be a na- 
tive and not a foreigner (Dent. XVII, 15), 
when already for ages before Josiah's time 
there had been a long line of kings, with 
the succession firmly fixed in the family of 
David. 

Deuteronomy also demands a promise 
from the future king before he can be 
selected that he will not " cause the people 
to return to Egypt,'' (Dent. XVII, 16) ; as 
they appeared desirous to do in the days of 
Moses on every fresh grievance (Num. XIV, 
4), but which they never thought of doing 
after their possession of Canaan. 

Wellhausen, to show that the Pentateuch 
is a tissue of broken fragments demanding 
many authors, claims that the first legisla- 



— 81 — 

tion, as lie calls it, presupposes a plurality 
of sanctuaries, and tliat Deuterononi}^, on 
the other hand, has a law for the abolition 
of local sanctuaries, as they are recognized 
by the first legislation. To show that the 
altars are many, and not one, he cites Exod, 
XX, 24, 26: ^'You shall make an altar of 
earth unto me, and you shall offer upon it 
your holocausts and peace-offerings ; your 
sheep and oxen, in every place where the 
memory of my name shall be : I will come 
to thee and will bless thee, etc/' This, 
Wellhausen maintains, is in direct contra- 
diction to Deut. XII, 2, 3 : '' Destroy all the 
places, in which the nations that you shall 
possess, worshipped their gods, upon high 
mountains, and hills, and under every shady 
tree. Overthrow their altars, and break 
down their statues, burn their groves with 
fire, and break their idols in pieces : destroy 
their names out of those places.'^ Reclaims 
that this latter must have been written in 
the time of Josiah, who wished to abolish 
all the ancient sanctuaries and establish at 
Jerusalem a single one for the unification 
and centralization of Israel. 

Wellhausen puts an entirety wrong con- 
struction on this second passage. It refers 
to heathenish altars and not to Jewish sanc- 
tuaries. 

The first passage is the primary law of the 

6 



— 82 — 

altar of Israel, given at Sinai, before even 
the tabernacle was built. It directs the erec- 
tion of an altar of stone or earth in everv 
place where God should record his name 
or manifest himself, but not at all where- 
ever people might select to erect such an 
altar. This was the motive for the erection 
of an altar at Sinai and other future places 
where God had conspicuously made a man- 
ifestation of His being. The passage reall}^ 
refers to altars successively erected at dif- 
ferent places in the Wilderness, and not 
co-existing sanctuaries in Canaan. No 
sanction is here given for a multiplicity of 
co-existing altars. Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob in patriarchal days and in the Holy 
Land itself, built different altars and of- 
fered sacrifice upon them, but they were 
erected in their several abodes successively 
but not simultaneously. They were not 
rival but successive altars. 

Wellhausen pretends to find a serious 
discrepancy between Deuteronomy and the 
Levitical Law in regard to the priesthood : 
in this that according to the former all 
Levites are priests, and have an equal right 
to perform priestly functions and share 
the priestly revenues, while in the latter 
none are priests but Aaron and his sons, 
and the Levites are servants or attendants 
upon the priests. 



— 83 — 

The abolition of the local shrines in favor 
of Jerusalem, Wellhausen argues, necessarily 
involved the deposition of the provincial 
priesthood in favor of the sons of Zaodoak 
in the temple of Solomon. The law of 
Deuteronomy tries to avoid this consequence 
by conceding the privilege of offering sac- 
rifices at Jerusalem to the Levites from 
other places ; Levites in Deuteronomy i^ 
the general name fof priests whose right to 
ofi&ciate is hereditary. But this privilege 
was never realized, no doubt because the 
sons of Zaodoak opposed it. The latter, 
therefore, were now the only real priests, 
and the priests of the high places lost their 
office with the destruction of their altars ; 
for the loss of their sacrificial dues they re- 
ceived a sort of eleemosynary compensation 
from their aristocratic brethren (2 Kings 
XXIII, 9). 

The displacing of the provincial priests, 
though practically almost inevitable, went 
against the law of Deuteronomy ; but an 
argument to justify it was supplied by 
Bzekiel (Ezek. XLIV). The other Levites, 
he says, forfeited their priesthood by abus- 
ing it in the service of the high places ; and 
for this they shall be degraded to be mere 
servants of the Levites of Jerusalem, who 
have not been guilty of the offense of doing 



— 84- 

sacrifice to provincial shrines, and thus 
alone deserve to remain priests. 

If we start from Deuteronomy, where all 
Levites have equal priestly rights, this ar- 
gument and ordinance are plain enough but 
it is utterly impossible to understand them 
if the Priestly Code is taken as already ex- 
isting. 

Bzekiel views the priesthood as originally 
the right of all Levite'fe, while by the Priest- 
ly Code a Levite who claims this right is 
guilty of baseless and wicked presumption, 
such as once cost the lives of all the com- 
pany of Korah. 

Ezekiel's ideas and aims are entirely in 
the same direction as the Priestly Code, and 
yet he plainly does not know the Code 
itself. This can only mean that in his day 
it did not exist, and that his ordinances 
formed one of the steps that prepared the 
way for it. 

In answer to all this it must be under- 
stood as a paramount fact that Deuterono- 
my is a body of laws incomplete in itself. 
Deuteronomy really follows, is attached to 
and co-ordinated with the legislation of the 
preceding books of the Pentateuch. The 
mutual relations between priests and Le- 
vites and their special functions being al- 
ready specified in the Levitical Law it was 
entirely unnecessary to repeat the same 



— 85 — 

things in Deuteronomy. All that specially 
relates to the ministers of religion and the 
ceremonies of worship finds its place in the 
Levitical Law rather than in Deuteronomy. 
Thus in (Dent. XXIV, 8, 9) there is direct 
allusion to the Law of Leprosy previously 
given in (Lev. XIII, XIV,) (Deut. X. 8, 
9 ; and XVIII, i, 2) point out duties already 
assigned and support allowed to the tribe 
of Levi, with reference to (Num. XVIII. 20), 
which establishes the relative status of 
priests and Levites. 

The rescinding of the restriction demand- 
ing that every animal slain for food should 
be presented at the Sanctuary mentioned in 
(Deut. XII, 15), plainly alludes to the law 
(Lev. XVII, 3) which could only have been 
enacted in the Wilderness as a preservative 
against idolatry and was altogether imprac- 
ticable in Canaan. This law was then 
formally abrogated before the entrance of 
the Israelites into the promised land. 

Deut. XXXIII, 8~ii, plainly and une- 
quivocally alludes to the preceding history 
and laws. Deuteronomy thus by its own 
express account alludes only briefly and 
summarily to the existence and binding au- 
thority of a more detailed antecedent legis- 
lation. 

It is claimed further that Deuteronomy 
does not distinguish between priest and 



— 86- 

Levite. That is the baldest assertion. The 
only seeming foundation for it is the words 
of (Deut. XVIII, i): ^^The priests and 
Levites, and all that are of the same tribe, 
shall have no part, nor inheritance with the 
rest of Israel, because they shall eat the 
sacrifices of the Lord, and his oblations/' 

The true significance of these words is 
to afiirm that both the priests and the whole 
tribe to which they belong are without in- 
heritance. Deut. XVIII, 3-5 says: ^^This 
shall be the priest's due from the people, 
and from them that offer victims : whether 
they sacrifice an ox, or a sheep, they shall 
give the priest the shoulder and the breast : 
.... For the Lord thy God hath chosen 
him of all thy tribes, to stand, and to minis- 
ter to the name of the Lord, him and his 
sons forever.'' 

And (Deut. XVIII, 6-8): ^^ If a Levite 
go out of any of the cities throughout all 
Israel, in which he dwelleth, and have a 
longing mind to come to the place which the 
Lord shall choose, .... He shall receive 
the same portion of food that the rest do: 
besides that which is due to him in his own 
city, by succession from his fathers." In 
this passage a clear and fixed distinction is 
certainly made between a priest and Levite. 
Indeed in the whole book of Deuteronomy 
wherever reference is made to priests the 



same functions are ascribed to them as to 
priests in the Levitical Law. 

On the other hand where Levites are 
spoken of they are regarded as objects of 
charitable beneficence, as a dependent and 
needy class, as in (Dent. XIV, 29) : '^ And 
the Levite that hath no other part nor pos- 
session with thee, and the stranger, and 
the fatherless, and the widow, that are with- 
in thy gates, shall come and shall eat and 
be filled : That the Lord thy God may bless 
thee in all the works of thy hands that 
thou shalt do.'' 

In (Deut. XXVII, 9, 12, 14) distinction is 
clearly made between Levitical priests and 
Levites. Deuteronomy all along makes a 
distinction between priests of the tribe of 
Levi who perform priestly duties and Le- 
vites who do not. 

Deut. X, 6, fixes the priesthood in Aaron 
and his sons. The Levitical Law similarly 
establishes the priesthood in the family. of 
Aaron. 

This passage of Deut. XVIII, 6, 7) : 
^^ If a Levite go out of any one of the cities 
throughout all Israel, in which he dwelleth, 
and have a longing mind to come to the 
place which the Lord shall choose, he 
shall minister in the name of the Lord his 
God, as all his brethern the Levites do, 
that shall stand at that time before the 



Lord.'' The plain meaning of these words 
is that any Levite whatever can officiate in 
the sanctnary and perform acts proper to 
his grade; if a priest, those of a priest; if 
a Levite, those of a Levite. 

In regard to the priestly offerings there 
is no contradiction between Deuteronomy 
and the Levitical Law. The former simply 
alludes briefly to what has been already 
laid down in a formal and detailed manner 
by the latter. 

The trouble with Wellhausen is that he 
is unwilling to take the author's plain 
meaning. He tries to force upon the pas- 
sages meanings entirely foreign to the 
language. Wellhausen is the Ignatius 
Donnelly of the Pentateuch. With a great 
show of learning, shrewdness and verisim- 
ilitude he feigns to find an adroitly hidden 
cipher in the Pentateuch which the sacred 
penman never dreamed of putting there. 



— 89 — 

Chapter VI. 

THE CREATION. 

Genesis Kosmou (Generation of the 
World) or briefly Genesis, is the name of 
the first book of the Pentateuch and is so- 
called from its account of the origin of the 
world. 

For convenience sake it has been sepa- 
rated into fifty chapters, but its subject 
matter seems naturally to divide itself into 
two parts ; the first of which reaches from 
the first to the twelfth chapter and the sec- 
ond from the twelfth to the fiftieth chapter. 

The first part of Genesis contains the 
history of the creation, an account of the 
terrestrial paradise, the fall of man, the del- 
uge, the repeopling of the earth, the Tower 
of Babel, the confusion of tongues, the dis- 
persion of mankind, the genealogies of the 
patriarchs from Adam to Abraham ; and of 
the religion, arts, settlements, corruption 
and destruction of the antediluvian world. 

The second part gives a history of the 
patriarchs from Abraham to Joseph and 
embraces an account of the rise and progress 
of the Hebrew nation. 

In the Hebrew scriptures this first book 
of Moses is called Bereshith, from the first 
word in the text: ^^ In the Beginning" 



— 90- 

(bereshith). Its narrative goes back to 
the very twilight of antiquity and embraces 
a period variously estimated at from 2300 
to 3619 years. 

Independently of the rest of the Penta- 
teuch, to which it stands as an introduction, 
Genesis forms of itself a complete whole 
and although portions of it seem discord- 
ant, it being of the character of a diary, 
nevertheless it does not want essential 
unity. 

Much of Genesis must have been the 
work of direct revelation. Some portions, 
it would seem, Moses wrote under the in- 
fluence of inspiration, from patriarchal 
tradition, and probably some parts, too, from 
more ancient documents already existing. 

The cosmogony of Moses is certainly in- 
finitely more sublime and morally superior 
to all other accounts of the creation. 

The discovery of similar traditions re- 
garding the creation in the religious records 
of other primeval nations is a powerfully 
corroborating proof of the historical truth 
of the Mosaic account. And particularly 
as far as language is concerned the most 
recent and most intelligent investigations 
afiirm the Mosaic division of mankind into 
three principal races, corresponding to the 
descendants of Noah^s sons, Shem, Ham and 
Japhet, to be substantially correct. 



— 91 — 

The first chapter of Genesis contains 
Moses' snblime and noble history of crea- 
tion: ^^ In the beginning God created the 
Heaven and the Earth. And the earth 
was void and empty, and darkness was npon 
the face of the deep ; and the spirit of God 
moved over the waters. And God said : Be 
light made. And light was made. 

And God saw the light that it was good : 
and He divided the light from the darkness. 
And He called the light Day, and the dark- 
ness Night : and there was evening and 
morning one day. 

And God said : Let there be a firmament 
made amidst the waters : and let it divide 
the waters from the waters. 

And God made a firmament, and divided 
the waters that were under the firmament, 
from those' that were above the firmament. 
And it was so. 

And God called the firmament. Heaven : 
and the evening and morning were the sec- 
ond day. 

God also said : Let the waters that are 
under the Heaven, be gathered together in- 
to one place : and let the dry land appear. 
And it was so done. And God called the 
dry land. Earth : and the gathering together 
of the waters he called Seas. And God saw 
that it was good. 

And He said : Let the earth bring forth 



— 92 — 

the green herb, and snch as may seed, and 
the fruit tree yielding fruit after its kind, 
which may have seed in itself upon the 
earth. And it was so done. 

And the earth brought forth the green 
herb, and such as yieldeth seed according 
to its kind and the tree that beareth fruit, 
having seed each one according to its kind. 
And God saw that it was good. 

And the evening and the morning were 
the third day. 

And God said: Let there be lights made 
in the firmament of heaven, to divide the 
day and the night, and let them be for signs, 
and for seasons and for days and years : 

To shine in the firmament of heaven, 
and to give light upon the earth. And it 
was so done. 

And God made two great lights: A 
greater light to rule the day : and a lesser 
light to rule the night : and stars. 

And he set them in the firmament of 
heaven, to shine upon the earth. 

And to rule the day and the night, and 
to divide the light and the darkness. And 
God saw that it was good. 

And the evening and morning were the 
fourth day. 

God also said.: Let the waters bring forth 
the creeping creature having life, and the 



— OS- 
fowl that may fly over the earth under the 
firmament of heaven. 

And God created the great whales, and 
every living and moving creature, which the 
waters brought forth, according to their 
kinds, and every winged fowl according to 
its kind. And God saw that it was good. 

And he blessed them saying : Increase and 
multiply, and fill the waters of the sea : and 
let the birds be multiplied upon the earth. 

And the evening and morning were the 
fifth day. 

And God said : Let the earth bring forth 
the living creature in its kind, cattle, and 
creeping things, and beasts of the earth 
according to their kinds : and it was done. 

And God made the beasts of the earth 
according to their kinds, and cattle, and 
everything that creepeth on the earth after 
its kind. And God saw that it was good. 

And he said: Let us make man to our 
image and likeness ; and let him have 
dominion over the fishes of the sea, and 
the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the 
whole earth, and every creeping creature 
that moveth upon the earth. 

And God created man to his own image : 
to the image of God he created him, male 
and female he created them. 

And God blessed them, saying : Increase 
and multiply, and fill the earth, and sub- 



— 94 — 

due it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, 
and the fowls of the air, and all living 
creatures that move upon the earth. 

And God said: Behold, I have given you 
every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and 
all trees that have in themselves seed of 
their own kind, to be your meat. 

And to all beasts of the earth, and to 
every fowl of the air, and to all that move 
upon the earth, and wherein there is life, 
that they may have to feed upon. And it 
was done. 

And God saw all the things that he had 
made ; and they were very good. And the 
evening and morning were the sixth day.'' 

There are various opinions concerning 
the nature of the six days mentioned in 
Genesis in which the creation was accom- 
plished. 

Some regard them as ordinary mean solar 
days of twenty-four hours each, and take 
the words of Moses in their strict literal 
sense, claiming that God in creating the 
earth could by his omnipotent power im- 
press upon it instantly all the marks and 
features of age. 

Others while looking upon the days of 
Genesis as mere solar days, consider that 
the creation of matter and its evolution 
from its primeval chaotic state into the 
universe as we now see it, v/ere accom- 



— 95 — 

plished in that indefinite period designated 
in Genesis as: '' In the beginning." 

Again other theorists believe in a series 
of snccessive revolutions, whereby the world 
was destroyed and renewed. Many ancient 
cosmogonies seem to agree with this view. 

Others still regard the days of creation 
as mighty epochs during the progress of 
which the earth and its neighbors in space 
grew slowly by evolution into their present 
shape. 

The church has not spoken upon the mat- 
ter. She has formulated no definition of 
the length of the Mosaic days. So that a 
Catholic can hold the opinion that the days 
of Genesis were not ordinary ones, but great 
epochs, without in the slightest degree com- 
promising his faith. 

The hypothesis of epochs for the days of 
creation would bring Genesis, Astronomy, 
Geology and Biology into essential har- 
mony. 

A great number of Biblical commenta- 
tions claim that the Hebrew word zom from 
which dies, day, is translated is frequently 
used in Scripture for an epoch. 

The supporters of this opinion say that 
it is quite evident ^^that the duration of the 
three first days must be to us an indefinite 
period, as we can neither refer them to, nor 
compare them with, any known standard, as 



— 96 — 

the planets destined to point out the times 
and the seasons, the days and the nights, 
were not then in existence, not being formed 
until the fourth day. And as Moses makes 
no distinction between the three first and 
the three last days, the inference will fol- 
low, that the word day^ preceded by the 
terms y^ri"/ and seco7id^ was made use of by 
him to determine the order of the succes- 
sive creations composing the universe, and 
not for pointing out any definite space of 
time.'' 

St. Augustine (Gen. B. IV, Note 44) says : 
^^That we should not hastily pronounce on 
the nature of the six days of creation, nor 
assert that they were similar to our ordinary 
days.'' And in his City of God (De Civ. 
Dei, lib. i ch. VI.) : '' That it is difficult and 
even impossible for us to imagine, and even 
more so to say, what might be the nature 
of those days." 

We may safely then regard the days of 
Genesis as epochs of indefinite length dur- 
ing the lapse of which took place those suc- 
cessive creations mentioned by Moses. 

Bvolution is everywhere apparent in 
nature. The man is evolved from the child, 
the mighty oak from the sapling, the plant 
from the seed. God could have prepared 
the world by evolution for the separate cre- 
ations of more perfect species. It is not 



— 97 — 

more difficult for God to have created the 
universe by evolution than to sustain it by 
motion. 

Let us now consider the order of creation 
as recorded in Genesis. 

In the beginning God created Heaven 
and earth or all matter. This matter made 
its first appearance in a state designated by 
Moses as ^^void and empty" or in a com- 
pletely chaotic condition. 

Then began under the infinite intelligence 
and power of God the successive mxouldings 
of this immense mass of sluggish formless 
matter into symmetrical worlds. 

On the first day and anterior to Sun or 
Moon, God created Light or formed the 
luminous substance known as ether and 
which extends out to the boundless limits 
of space and permeates the interstices of all 
bodies. 

When the earth began slowly to draw 
away from the immense mass of chaotic va- 
por and to shape itself under the resultant 
force of motion and gravitation it was noth- 
ing more in appearance than a great cloud 
or globular fog-bank. 

The dense inner portion of this vaporous 
mass began to form the earth's heavy nu- 
cleus and draw away from the lighter cloud 
mass set floating in the air and thus the 
waters beneath were divided from the waters 

7 . 



— OS- 
above by a permanent expanse called by 
Moses the Firmament. On the second day 
God formed this Firmament or Heaven. 

On the third day the oceans and conti- 
nents were formed, the dry land was parted 
from the mass of waters on the earth's sur- 
face, and the simplest forms of life appeared 
called by Moses: ^^The green herb, and 
such as may seed.'' 

It is well to notice just here that the 
lowest kinds of vegetable and animal life, 
the protophj^te and protozoon, do not require 
the chemical rays of the Sun for their 
growth and substance. This first form of 
cell life needs only a warm soil and a moist 
atmosphere strongly saturated with car- 
bonic acid gas for its support and develop- 
ment. 

On the fourth day appeared the Sun, 
Moon and Stars. The great central orb 
after throwing off its different rings of va- 
por became more and more condensed under 
the action of its own gravity and began 
gradually to assume its present shape and 
appear as a glowing sun. 

The earth's offspring, the Moon, settled 
down to its offices of a most beneficent satel- 
lite. 

Our planet's atmosphere, also, became 
sufficiently clear to render visible the twink- 
ling of the stars. 



— 99 — 

The firmament here referred to by Moses 
is the limitless expanse stretching out into 
interstellar space and which differs only 
from the firmament of the second day, in 
being its prolongation. 

In the cosmogony of Moses the heavenly 
bodies are important relatively to their in- 
fluence upon our planet and hence the Sun 
and Moon are called two great lights al- 
though there are suns in space much brighter 
and greater than our own. 

On the fifth day God made the fishes and 
the birds. When the seasons were estab- 
lished and the sun's chemical rays beamed 
upon the earth and rendered it suitable as 
the habitation of a higher type of life than 
the protophyte and the protozoon God called 
forth the fishes and the birds. The fifth 
day was the proper age of the lower animals, 
of the creeping creatures, that swarm in the 
waters, and the fowl that fly over the earth. 

Nowhere, however, in God's creation is 
the higher species of animals evolved from 
the lower. In God's work there is no de- 
scent of species. There w^as a progress of 
species, but this progress does not signify 
that the earliest species were necessarily 
the lowest to be always followed by a higher 
type. In the more imperfect conditions of 
life, the more common type is the precursor, 
but not ancestor, of its betters in the better 



— 100 — 

conditions which successively followed each 

other. 

On the sixth day God created the higher 
animal life, the mammals, or as Moses 
states it, the beasts of the earth according 
to their kinds are brought forth, and cattle, 
and everything that prowleth on the earth. 
And lastly on this sixth day God made man 
to his own image and likeness. 

Another view of the days of Genesis 
w^ould be to regard them in a figurative or 
symbolical sense and the Mosaic narrative 
as more of a theological than a historical 
account of creation. Philo, Origen, Proco- 
pius and many ancient commentators took 
this view of the matter long before our 
modern geological discoveries, and so were 
not driven to it by the progress of the 
physical sciences. 

As the figure of the eye is symbolical of 
sight so the six days are symbolical of the 
successively accomplished works of the 
creator. 

According to the symbolic sense the days 
of Moses '^ are not any succession of time, 
but a succession of order and reason, for the 
express purpose of proportioning himself to 
the understanding of the people, and to give 
them a more distinct notion of the creation 
of beings by distributing them in this way 



— 101 — 

into divisions, and according to a certain 
classification. '^ 

These commentators, then, understand 
the six days to be neither literal days not 
any measure whatever of time, but sj^mbol- 
ical expressions under which the works of 
creation are classified ; a succession in the 
order of conception, but not in the order of 
events ; not in the order of execution, but 
in the plan; not as things happen before 
the eyes of men, but in the mind of God. 

In this view it w^ould not matter which 
creatures were created first and which last, 
as neither measure of time, nor order of 
succession is attributed to the text. In this 
way there could not be possibly any clash 
between the Mosaic cosmogon}^ and scien- 
tific discoveries. 

Under this interpretation the object of 
Moses was purely a religious one. It was 
simply to teach, in accordance with the old 
patriarchal traditions that all things, water, 
air, earth, light, sun, moon, stars, plants, 
fishes, reptiles, mammals and man himself 
had been created according to their natures 
and that the substance of the world was not 
eternal but called into existence by the will 
of God. 

This symbolic interpretation is indeed 
a very ancient one, but in our times it is 
neither a verj^ common nor a popular one. 



— 102 — 

Chapter VII. 

MOSES AND LAPLACE. 

There is certainly nothing in Biblical lit- 
erature that has given rise to such violent 
controversies as the Mosaic cosmogony. It 
is claimed by many distinguished votaries 
of astronom}^, geology, chronology and biol- 
ogy, that these sciences have discovered un- 
deniable physical facts irreconcilable with 
explicit statements in the opening chapters 
of Genesis. 

It is claimed that modern science and 
Genesis are at variance concerning the age 
of the world and the creation and forma- 
tion of the universe. Is, then, the cos- 
mogou}^ of Laplace contradictory to that of 
Moses ? 

Among a number of modern hypotheses 
purporting to account for the present har- 
monious mechanism of the world the most 
beautiful and famous is the Nebular Hj^- 
pothesis of Laplace. This nebular hypoth- 
esis does not concern itself with the origin 
of matter, supposing it already in existence, 
and treats only of its transformations. 

Laplace begins by supposing the sun not 
only as already having some existence, but 
as having acquired some development, as 
having in fact a more or less dense nucleus, 



— 103 ^ 

surrounded by a rare, elastic atmosphere of 
vast extent. 

He considers this nucleus as either solid 
or so dense, compared with the atmosphere, 
as to be relatively solid, and to contain by 
far the greatest amount of the body^s mass. 

He assumes, for the sake of convenience, 
the form of this nucleus to be alread}^ re- 
duced to that of a spheroid, differing but 
slightly from a sphere ; but the shape of 
the atmosphere's bounding surface he leaves 
to be determined solely by the resultant 
of the centrifugal and gravitating forces, 
springing from any given mass and velocity 
of rotation that the body can have. 

The nucleus and atmosphere are rotating 
on an axis. Laplace calls the distance of 
that portion of the atmosphere from the 
axis where the centrifugal force just bal- 
ances gravity, the centrifugal limit. 

Laplace then demonstates mathematically 
that at the centrifugal limit of the atmos- 
phere of a rotating body, over the equator, 
the equatorial radius is to the polar precisely 
as three to two. 

When, then, the axial motion of the sun 
became so great that the centrifugal force 
caused its atmosphere's equatorial axis to 
be to its polar as three to two, the outer 
portion of the atmosphere would leave the 
sun. 



-104 — 

Laplace supposed that owing to excessive 
heat the atmosphere of the sun extended 
be3'^ond the orbits of all the planets, and 
that it has successfully contracted up to its 
present limits. 

He conjectures that the planets were 
formed at the successive centrifugal limits 
of the solar atmosphere by the condensa- 
tion of the zones of vapor which, in cool- 
ing, it had been obliged to abandon in the 
plane of its equator. But this hypothesis 
of Laplace is so beautiful and so important 
that it is best to give the great mathemati- 
cian's own words : " The atmosphere of the 
sun,'' he says, " could not extend outward 
indefinitel}^ Its limit is the point where 
the centrifugal force, due to its axial mo- 
tion, balances gravity. 

^^Now, in proportion as its cooling causes 
the atmosphere to contract and to be con- 
densed towards the sun's surface, the mxO- 
tion of rotation must increase. For, by 
virtue of the principle of areas, the sum of 
the areas described by the radius-vector of 
each molecule of the sun and of its atmos- 
phere, when projected on the plane of his 
equator, being always the same, the rotation 
ought to be more rapid when these mole- 
cules are brought nearer the sun's centre. 
The centrifugal force, due to this increased 
motion, thus becoming greater, the point at 



— 105 — 

which gravity is equal to it, approaches 
nearer the sun's centre. 

'' By supposing, therefore, what it is very 
natural to admit, that the sun's atmosphere 
at au}^ epoch had extended up to this limit, 
it would be necessary, on further cooling, 
for the atmosphere to abandon the mole- 
cules situated at this limit and at the suc- 
cessive limits produced by the increase of 
the sun's rotation. 

^^ These molecules, thus abandoned, have 
continued to circulate around the sun in the 
same direction as before, since their centrif- 
ugal force was just balanced by their gravi- 
ty towards the sun. 

" But this equality of centrifugal force 
and gravity not taking place with regard to 
the atmospheric molecules placed on the 
parallels to the solar equator, these latter 
molecules, by their gravity, will follow^ the 
atmosphere in proportion as it is condensed, 
and will not cease to belong to it until by 
their motion they have reached the equator. 

" Let us consider now the zones of vapor 
successively abandoned. These zones ought, 
most probably, to form by their condensation 
and the mutual attraction of their molecules, 
various concentric rings of vapor revolving 
around the sun. The mutual friction of 
the molecules of each ring ought to acceler- 
ate those moving more slowly, and retard 



— 106 — 

the swifter, until tlie}^ should all have ac- 
quired the same angular motion about the 
sun. 

'' Hence, the real velocity of the molecules 
farthest from the sun will be the greatest. 

'' The following cause ought to contribute 
also to this difference of velocity. The 
molecules of the ring most distant from the 
sun, and which, by the effect of cooling and 
condensing, are brought nearer, so as to 
form the outer portion of the ring, have 
always described areas proportioned to the 
time ; since the central force by which they 
are animated has been constantly directed 
towards the sun's center. 

'' Now, this constancy of areas requires an 
increase of velocity in proportion as the}' 
approach the centre of motion. It is evi- 
dent that the same cause ought to diminish 
the velocity of those molecules which, by 
the cooling and contracting process, are 
carried outwards to form the inner part of 
the ring. 

^^If all the molecules of one of these va- 
porous rings had continued to condense 
without separating, they would have formed 
at last a liquid or a solid ring. 

'' But the regularit}' which such a forma- 
tion requires in all parts of the ring, and in 
their rate of cooling, ought to render this 
phenomenon extremely rare. 



— 107 — 

^' Hence the Solar Sj^stem offers but a 
single example of it ; namely, that of the 
rings of Saturn. Almost always each va- 
porous ring ought to be broken into several 
masses, which, moving with nearly the same 
velocity, have continued to revolve around 
the sun at the same distance from him. 

'' These masses ought each one to take on 
a spheroidal form, with a motion of rotation 
in the same direction as their motion of 
revolution around the sun ; since their mole- 
cules nearest to him had less velocity than 
those farthest from him. 

" They must, therefore, have formed so 
many planets in a vaporous condition. But 
if one of them had been large and powerful 
enough to successively reunite by its attrac- 
tion all the others around its own centre, 
the vaporous ring will have been thus trans- 
formed into a single spheroidal vaporous 
mass revolving around the sun nearly in 
the plane of his equator, with a nearly circu- 
lar orbit, and with its motion of rotation 
generally in the same direction with that of 
its revolution around the sun. 

^^This last case has been the most com- 
mon ; but the solar system offers to us an 
example of the first case in the four small 
planets revolving between Mars and Jupi- 
ter, unless we suppose, with Olbers, that 
they formed at first a single planet which 



— 108 — 

some strong explosion has divided into sev- 
eral parts, animated by different velocities. 

'' If, now, we follow the changes which 
further cooling onght to produce in the 
planets consisting of vapor, the formation 
of which we have just considered, we shall 
see a nucleus begin at the centre of each of 
them, and see it grow continually by the 
condensation of the atmosphere which sur- 
rounds it. 

" In this state the planet perfectly re- 
sembles the sun in the nebulous condition 
which we have been considering. Its cool- 
ing ought, therefore, to produce, at the dif- 
ferent centrifugal limits of its atmosphere, 
phenomena similar to those which we have 
described ; that is to say, rings and satel- 
lites revolving around its centre in the di- 
rection of its motion of rotation, and the 
satellites rotating also in the same direction 
on their axes. 

" The regular distribution of the mass of 
Saturn's rings around his centre, and in 
the plane of his equator, results naturally 
from this hypothesis, and without it be- 
comes inexplicable. These rings appear to 
me to be the ever-existing proof of the for- 
mer extension of Saturn's atmosphere, and 
of its successive contractions. 

^'Thus, the singular phenomena of the 
small eccentricities of the orbits of the sev- 



— 109 — 

eral planets, and those of their satellites, or 
their almost circnlar orbits, the small incli- 
nations of these orbits to the sun's equator, 
and the identity of the motions of rotation 
and revolution of all these bodies with that 
of the sun's rotation, flow from the hypoth- 
esis which we propose, and give to it a great 
probability, which may be still further in- 
creased, by the following considerations. 

'' All the l)odies which revolve around a 
planet, having been formed, according to 
this hypothesis, by the zones which its at- 
mosphere ha3 successively abandoned, and 
the planet's motion of rotation having be- 
come more and more rapid, the duration of 
this rotation ought to be less than those of 
the revolution of these different bodies. 
This must be true, likewise, for the sun in 
comparison with the planets. All this is 
confirmed by observation. 

" The duration of revolution of Saturn's 
nearest ring is, according to Herschel's ob- 
servations, 0.438 d., and that of Saturn's 
rotation is 0.427 d. The difference, o.oii d., 
is small, as it ought to be ; because the part 
of Saturn's atmosphere which the loss of 
heat has condensed upon the planet's sur- 
face since the formation of this ring being 
small, and coming from a small height, 
it ought to have produced but a small in- 
crease of the planet's rotation. 



— no — 

If the Solar System had been formed 
with perfect regularit}', the orbits of the 
bodies which compose it w^ould have been 
perfect circles, whose planes, as well as those 
of the different equators and rings, would 
have coincided exactly with the sun's equa- 
tor. But we can conceive that the innum- 
erable varieties which ought to have pre- 
vailed in the temperature and density of 
the several parts of these great Inasses have 
produced the eccentricities of their orbits 
and the deviations of their motions from 
the plane of the sun's equator. 

'' In our hypothesis the comets are stran- 
gers to the planetary system. Considering 
them, as we have done, as small nebulse 
w^andering from one solar system to an- 
other, and formed by the condensation of 
nebulous matter so profusely scattered 
throughout the universe, it is evident that 
when they arrive at that part of space where 
the sun's attraction predominates, he com- 
pels them to describe elliptical or hyper- 
bolic orbits. But their velocities being 
equally possible in all directions, they ought 
to move indifferently in all directions, and 
under all inclinations to the ecliptic, which 
is conformable to observation. 

Thus the condensation of nebulous matter, 
by which w^e have explained the motions of 
rotation and revolution of the planets and 



— Ill- 
satellites in the same direction and in planes 
of small inclination to each other, explains 
equally why the comets depart from this 
general law.'' (The Author's Astronomy, 
page 234). 

Reasoning backward from the point where 
he assumed, for convenience, the sun to be 
a dense nucleus with a hot extensive atmos- 
phere, Laplace supposes the radiant orb, in 
a more primitive state, to resemble those 
nebulae shown by the telescope to be com- 
posed of a brilliant nucleus surrounded by 
a nebulosity which, by condensing towards 
the surface of the nucleus, transforms it into 
a star. 

Judging from analogy, he supposed the 
stars all formed in this way by condensation 
from nebulous matter. Each condition of 
nebulosity was preceded by other conditions, 
in which the nebulous substance was more 
diffused, and the nucleus less luminous and 
less condensed. In this way he reaches a 
condition of nebulosity barely existing. 

Because our planets and satellites are the 
offspring of the same atmosphere in whose 
primitive m^otion all partook, Laplace points 
out as proofs of the truth of his hypothesis : 
that the movements of the planets are all in 
the same direction, and nearly in the same 
plane ; 



— 112 — 

That the motions of the satellites are in 
the same direction as those of the planets ; 

That the rotations of these different 
bodies, and of the sun, are in the same di- 
rections as their orbital motions, and in 
planes that varj^ but little from each other; 

That the paths of both planets and satel- 
lites are nearly circular, or of small eccen- 
tricity ; 

That, contrarily, the orbits of comets are 
of great eccentricity, and of every inclina- 
tion to the ecliptic, and that their motions 
are in all directions. 

Let us now place side by side the days of 
creation and the successive developments of 
the Nebular Hypothesis. If the days are 
taken in the sense of ages or epochs the 
agreement between the two cosmogonies is 
indeed wonderful. 

The First and Second Days of Moses 
and the Nebular Hypothesis: The earth 
was a portion of that nebulosity embracing 
the materials of the sun and all the planets 
and satellites. Matter was held in this 
nebulous condition because of its immense 
stores of latent heat. 

This nebulous cloud gradually began to 
turn itself upon an axis by a natural law of 
mechanics and to radiate its heat into space 
and so to gradually cool and condense to- 
wards a nucleus or centre. 



— 113 — 

In this fiery cloud were the vapors of 
rocks and metals and metalloids and indeed 
of all the elements known to the earth and 
planets. 

Thus far indeed the condition of things 
in this scheme of worlds of ours was '' void 
and empty.'' 

The external portion of this vast cloud 
touching the cold of space, 400° Fahrenheit 
below zero, began to gradually liquefy and 
fall upon the lighter and hotter nucleus in 
showers of molten metal. 

These were again reduced to a vaporous 
state and driven forth towards the surface, 
not however without the fiery mass being 
deprived of a portion of its heat, to be again 
cooled by radiation and again throw^n back 
upon the centre like condensing clouds. 
This process continued until a thin crust of 
solidified material w^as formed on the sur- 
face of the glowing mass. 

The earth grew cooler and cooler gradu- 
ally through the continued action of radia- 
tion. Water condensing from its vapor 
began to form upon the solidified crust of 
the earth. As is the condition now^ upon 
the planet Venus, which is covered w4th a 
cloud-mantle, in w^hich there is scarcely ever 
a rift, continuous rains prevailed for a long 
period upon the earth, maintaining a thick 
and constant darkness. The time came 

8 



— 114 — 

when these incessant rains began to gradu- 
ally abate and the clonds were rent asunder 
and the atmosphere became a permanent 
matter dividing the water above from the 
water beneath. This atmosphere is the 
^^ expanse '' or ^^ firmament '' of Moses. 

On the Third Day, owing to the awful 
heat of the interior, the newly formed crust 
of the earth was greatly and constantl}^ con- 
vulsed, causing upheavals and depressions. 

In some sections appeared the dry land 
and in others the waters were gathered to- 
gether forming oceans and seas. 

The great central mass had thus far 
thrown off Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter, 
Mars and the earth. It had yet to cast off 
Venus and Mercury and so was still in a 
nebulous condition and not sufficiently con- 
densed to be regarded as a sun. 

This was now the great age of vegetation 
upon the earth, or the carboniferous period, 
and corresponded probably to the present 
condition of things on the planet Venus. 
The herbaceous trees and rank vegetation of 
this epoch did not require the sun^s rays for 
their growth. 

On the Fourth Day the central molten 
mass, having throwm off all the planets and 
satellites, condensed into a sun, and the Moon 
had assumed its proper position as a satellite, 



— 115 — 

it having been previously thrown off by the 
earth. 

These two great lights and the stars now 
appeared in the sky, visible to the earth, 
because the cloud-canopy of the earth had 
been rent asunder and the firmament was 
sufficiently clear of clouds to allow a view of 
the heavenly bodies from the earth. 

Moses called the sun and moon two great 
lights of the firmament, although compared 
with other bodies in the universe they are 
really insignificant. But Moses was evi- 
dently giving the genesis of the earth and 
naturally regarded the other bodies as of 
secondary consideration, and gave them 
prominence as they stood towards the earth 
relatively of more or less importance. 

After the appearance of the sun, moon 
and stars. Astronomy steps down and leaves 
the consideration of the further develop- 
ments of the Nebular Hypothesis to the 
science of Geology. 

The distinguished astronomer Pritchard 
(1889), speaking of Genesis, has this to say : 
'' That it could not originally have been in- 
tended to give a scientific account of crea- 
tion in its precise order, or method, or 
limitation of time, I am convinced when I 
read of (i) the existence of water before the 
appearance of the sun ; (2) the clothing of 
the earth with fruit trees and grass, each 



— lie- 
bearing its fruit, before the creation of the 
sun ; (3) the successive orders or stages of 
creation occupying each one single day 
(The Creation Proem of Genesis, page 262)/' 

Waters could certainly have existed upon 
the earth's surface anterior to the contrac- 
tion of the central mass of our system into a 
sun properly so called. 

The nebulous mass of the earth thrown 
off by the sun was comparatively small and 
had already radiated into space much of its 
latent heat and had greatly condensed even 
before the planet Venus was cast off from 
the central mass. Small heated gaseous 
bodies cool and condense much more rapidly 
than large ones. The immense volume of 
the sun had to contract ninety-two and one 
half million miles while the very small vol- 
ume of the earth had to shrink only through 
a quarter of a million miles. Whilst the 
sun was yet partially nebulous the crust of 
the earth must have been already formed 
and covered in places by water. 

Pritchard's second objection, the clothing 
of the earth^s surface with vegetation before 
the appearance of the sun, is sufficiently 
answered by saying that naturalists now 
almost unanimously admit that vegetation 
could exist and grow luxuriantly, in a warm 
soil and in an atmosphere strongly satu- 



— 117 — 

rated with watery vapor and carbonic acid 
gas, independently of the rays of the snn. 

His third objection is answered by assum- 
ing the days to be epochs, or if literal days, 
by assuming the expression of Genesis, '^ In 
the Beginning,'^ as an indefinite period dur- 
ing the lapse of which all developments 
could have occurred. 

The different sciences are continually 
changing. They are gradually and con- 
stantly improving. With each new light 
shed upon them a favorite hypothesis con- 
sidered as all but established has to be 
abandoned. 

Through all the world's vicissitudes the 
Pentateuch has held its sacred ground and 
still holds the reverence of the civilized 
world. Discoveries, particularly in the new 
sciences, seemed at first to contradict some 
statements of Moses, but later on, when the 
sciences became better developed, the seem- 
ing contradictions disappeared. 

A remarkable instance of this was pre- 
sented by the science of Optics. When 
modern Optics was in its infancy, there was 
a great out-cry because Genesis announced 
the creation of Light anterior to the sun's 
existence. But when Young and Fresnel 
discovered by genius and hard work the true 
laws of Optics, it was seen that this science 



-118 — 

and the Pentateucli were in joerfect accord 
regarding the nature of Light. 

New opinions in science are often received 
by inexperienced amateurs with great favor 
and enthusiastically embraced without prop- 
er care. 

When these seem to be at great variance 
with Biblical records, it is wise, as past ex- 
periences show, to be slow in accepting 
them. Time and experiment may change 
them altogether. 

Astronomy is certainly one of the oldest 
and it has alwaj^s been called the most per- 
fect of the sciences. The Nebular is one 
of its pet hypotheses. In the time of the 
Elder Herschel it was looked upon as an 
established Theory. But when the mighty 
telescope of Parsonstown let in its flood of 
light on astronomy, the island universes of 
space commenced to be resolved into starry 
points, and the scheme of Laplace began to 
weaken. The great Hypothesis is now re- 
garded as all but a failure. 

Laplace likened the Solar System in its 
primitive state to the distant nebulae, which 
he looked upon as forming star systems, and 
external to, and quite distinct from, the 
sidereal universe. 

But these nebulae are not external galax- 
ies, nor distinct from the sidereal system, 
but are indeed part and parcel of it. 



— 119 — 

From the examination of the great irregu- 
lar nebula surrounding Eta Argus, the great 
Orion nebula, the nebulas of the Nubeculae, 
and similar nebulae, it cannot be doubted 
that a real and close association exists be- 
tween the stars and nebulae, and that the}^ 
really constitute but a single system. 

According to Laplace, the primary must 
rotate on its axis in less time than its satel- 
lite revolves about it. 

The inner satellite of Mars, on the con- 
trary, revolves about him three times while 
he is rotating once. Here is an observed 
fact, opposing the Hypothesis. 

The sun has by tidal action somewhat 
retarded the axial velocity of Mars, but cer- 
tainly not to this extraordinary extent. 

It is admitted that the earth^s axial mo- 
tion has been but little affected by solar 
tidal action. Solar tides on Mars could not, 
then, have produced such wondrous effects. 

If the mass of Mars be less than the 
earth^s, his diameter is also much less, and, 
other things being equal, tidal action is 
proportioned to the diameter of the body 
acted upon. Mars, too, is one and a half 
times more distant than the earth from the 
sun. 

One of the main pillars of Laplace's hy- 
pothesis is the uniformity of the motions, 
both axial and revolutionary, of the planets 



— 120 — 

and satellites in the same direction from west 
to east. Here again is an observed fact 
against the hypothesis. The satellites of 
Uranus, and that of Neptune, are known to 
have a retrograde movement. 

There is a great dynamical principle 
known as the conservation of the ^^ moment 
of momentum. '^ This conservation of the 
moment of momentum differs entirely from 
what is known as the conservation of energy. 

The energy of the solar system can be 
transformed into heat, and a portion of it 
constantly dissipated and lost in space, but 
no action of the system itself can ever ali- 
enate a single iota of the moment of mo- 
mentum. 

The relative distribution of the moment 
of momentum may be altered, but the total 
amount, barring external influence, can never 
be changed. 

If we multiply Jupiter's mass by his an- 
gular orbital motion in one second, and the 
product by the square of his distance from 
the sun, we obtain Jupiter's orbital moment 
of momentum. 

If we multiply Jupiter's mass by his an- 
gular rotatory motion in one second, and the 
product by the square of a line depending 
on his constitution, we have his rotational 
moment of momentum. 



— 121 — 

Similarly the moments of momentum of 
the other planets are deduced. 

If we multiply the sun's mass by his an- 
gular rotatory motion in one second, and the 
product by the square of a line depending 
on his constitution, we obtain his rotational 
moment of momentum. 

Professor Ball gives the following distri- 
bution of the moment of momentum in the 
Solar System, the total being taken as lOO. 

Orbital moment of momentum of Jupiter . .60 

Orbital moment of momentum of Saturn 24 

Orbital moment of momentum of Uranus 6 

Orbital moment of momentum of Neptune 8 

Rotational moment of momentum of the Sun. ... 2 

Total 100 

The other bodies are not considered, their 
moment of momentum being comparatively 
infinitesimal. 

Professor Ball says : ^^ It might be hastily 
thought that, just as the moon was born of 
the earth, so the planets were born of the 
sun, and have gradually receded by tides 
into their present condition. We have the 
means of inquiry into this question by the 
figures just given, and we shall show that 
it seems utterly impossible that Jupiter, or 
any of the other planets, can ever have been 
very much closer to the sun than thej^ are 
at present.^' 

Above all it seems utterly impossible that 



— 122 — 

Jupiter could have received his orbital mo- 
ment of momentum from the sun. 

Laplace's hypothesis places the centrifu- 
gal limits of the abandoned portions of the 
revolving glowing atmosphere of the sun 
widely apart. After abandoning the first 
vaporous ring, the atmosphere contracts to 
nearly one-half its primitive bulk before 
throwing off another. The abandonment of 
each ring was followed by an immense at- 
mospheric shrinkage. 

This would demand such great cohesion 
in a glowing mass of vapor as it is difficult 
to concede it possessed. It would seem to 
be more in accord with the character of a 
gaseous body that, when the centrifugal 
limit was reached the first time, the outer 
mass, under the influence of centrifugal 
force, would partially separate from the por- 
tions next to it ; then these would separate 
next, and so on. In this way, instead of a 
series of rings, there would be a constant 
dropping off of matter from the outer por- 
tions, producing an almost infinite number 
of concentric rings, all joined together. 
Thus, there would result a meteoric instead 
of a planetary sj^stem. This is the objection 
of Professor Kirkwood. 

Professor Newcomb considers that the 
rings were all thrown off together, and that 



— 123 — 

tlie inner and smaller bodies are, if any- 
thing, the older. 

Faye thinks that the onter planets were 
formed last. 

Thus, it appears that Laplace's hypothesis 
is far from being established, if indeed, it 
has not altogether failed. (The Author's 
Astronomy, Pages 234-244.) 

Scientists should al3ove all things avoid 
dogmatism, and this particularly in regard 
to those sciences which are in their infanc3^ 
The Pentateuch has held its own through 
all the ages, has won the reverence of all 
civilized peoples and bears the seal of the 
approvement of a great nation. Many sci- 
ences, when still in the cradle, seemed to 
contradict it, which afterwards, when better 
established, were found to be in perfect ac- 
cord with it. So that when Science and 
Genesis seem to clash, let us not pass too 
rapid a judgment against an old friend, but 
await patiently until the principles of science 
are properly classified and firmly established. 



— 124 — 

Chapter VIII. 

PROVIDENCE IN THE WORLD. 

There is no essential contradiction be- 
tween science and the Bible. Indeed they 
snstain each other. One of the chief aims 
of the Bible is to teach that the world is 
under the guidance of a benign and divine 
Providence. The Bible teaches that God 
made the world and governs it. Science 
teaches the very same thing. 

A very cursory study of the material 
world and its laws suggests to the observer 
the unwearied presence of a wise and pre- 
siding Providence. The world is governed 
by general laws which are fixed and con- 
stant. There is nothing left to chance in 
the government of the physical universe. 

The earth's rotation on its axis regulates 
the length of the day, its revolution around 
the sun, that of the year, and the oscillation 
of its polar axis, the duration of the seasons. 
Thus the motions of the earth occasion the 
succession of days, seasons and years ; and 
these motions are regulated by the attraction 
of the solar mass, which is absolutely invari- 
able in its action. 

Atmospheric forces and the weather itself, 
apparently so capricious, are governed by 
fixed and regular laws ; the heat of the sun 



— 125- 

being the chief element in determining the 
character of the weather. 

Invariable laws likewise govern the vital 
movements of animals and plants. In the 
nature and operation of these laws we will 
find upon examination the reign of benevo- 
lence and foresight, and so will be moved to 
admire the goodness and wisdom of the 
Almighty Law-giver. 

" When we speak of material nature as 
being governed by LAWS, it is sufficiently 
evident that we use the term in a manner 
somewhat metaphorical. The laws to which 
man's ^ attention is primarily directed, are 
MORAL laws : rules laid down for his actions ; 
rules for the conscious actions of a person ; 
rules which, as a matter of possibility, he 
ma}^ obey, or may transgress ; the latter 
event being combined, not with an impossi- 
bilitj^, but with a penalty. But the Laws 
of Nature are something different from 
this ; they are rules for that which things 
are to do and suffer ; and this by no con- 
sciousness or will of theirs. They are rules 
describing the mode in which things do act ; 
they are invariably obeyed ; their transgres- 
sion is not punished, it is excluded. The 
language of a moral law is, man shall not 
kill; the language of a Law of Nature is, a 
stone WILL fall to the earth.'' (Whewell). 

It will be seen by observation that the 



— 126 - 

laws of nature are remarkably adapted to the 
office which is assigned them and afford 
proof of selection, design and goodness in 
the power by which they were established. 

The number and variety of nature's laws 
are great indeed, and it would be futile to 
attempt their examination in full in a single 
chapter. In their operations they are com- 
bined and intermixed in incalculable and 
endless complexity, influencing and modify- 
ing each other's effects in every direction. 
If we try to comprehend at once the whole 
of the complex system, we find ourselves 
utterly baffled by its extent and multiplicity. 
Still so far as we consider the bearing of one 
part upon another, we receive the impres- 
sion of adaptation, purpose and provision. 

Let us then consider some cases in which 
the different parts of the universe exhibit 
this mutual adaptation and thus see the evi- 
dence of Providence and Wisdom which the 
world of nature affords. The idea of a pre- 
serving and contriving mind in framing the 
world and its laws will spring up before us 
when we see the correspondencies which exist 
everywhere in nature between the qualities 
of brute matter and the constitution of living 
beings, between the tendency to derange- 
ment and the conservative influences by 
which such a tendency is counteracted. 

We will find a general agreement between 



— 127 — 

the nature of the laws which govern the or- 
ganic and inorganic world. Plants and 
animals have, in their construction, certain 
periodical functions which have a reference 
to alternations of heat and cold ; the length 
of the period which belongs to these func- 
tions by their construction, appears to be 
that of the period which belongs to the 
actual alternations of heat and cold, namely, 
a year. 

Plants and animals have again in their 
construction certain other periodical func- 
tions, which have a reference to alternations 
of light and darkness ; the length of the 
period of such functions appears to coincide 
with the natural day. 

The members of the organic world are 
also adapted by the various peculiarities of 
their construction to the effects of gravity 
on the air and moisture and other elements 
which it controls. 

Creatures are created on a plan and scale 
which is exactly the single one suited to 
their place on the earth. The Creator in 
producing one part of his work was always 
mindful of the other. He took an account 
of the weight of the earth, the density of 
the air and the measure of the ocean in cre- 
ating living beings. He did not cast his 
living creatures into the world to prosper or 
perish as they might find it suited to them 



— 128 — 

or not ; but fitted together, witTi the nicest 
skill, the world and the constitution which 
he gave to its inhabitants. Everything has 
been arranged for their well-being. 

There is a cycle or periodicity of internal 
functions in the vegetable kingdom that 
corresponds exactly to the length of a year. 
The length of the year is so determined as 
to be adapted to the constitution of most 
vegetables, or the constitution of vegetables 
is so adjusted as to be suited to the length 
the year has, and unsuited to a duration 
longer or shorter by any considerable por- 
tion. The vegetable clock-work is set for 
a year. 

The length of the year is determined by 
the time required by the earth to perform a 
revolution around the sun. If we suppose 
the earth to be placed nearer to the sun, 
such as in the case of the planet Venus, or 
farther away, such as that in the planet 
Mars, the length of our year would be 
greatly shortened or lengthened. 

A change of this kind would throw our 
botanical world into absolute disorder. The 
whole vegetable world, according to the 
opinion of the best naturalists, would suffer 
rapid extinction. 

The function of the vegetable kingdom 
has a periodicity depending on the length 
of the year. The appearance of fruit, of 



— 129 — 

leaves and flowers, the flowing of sap and 
other vital functions depend entirely on the 
duration of the year. If it were radically 
changed all vegetables would die and disap- 
pear. Artificial agencies might sufl&ce for 
a short time. But ultimately the vegetable 
world would decay. This correspondence 
between the cycle of the year and the peri- 
odicity of vital functions in plants is not the 
offspring of chance. There is here design, 
intention and wise provision. 

The periodicity of certain functions of 
plants depends on the length of the day or 
the time of rotation of the earth on its axis. 
The opening and shutting of their flowers 
by certain plants and other physiological 
functions are regulated by the length of the 
day and the alternation of light and dark- 
ness. There is here a physiological period 
adapted to the astronomical period of twenty- 
four hours. 

Jupiter's day is about ten hours and the 
Moon's day more than twenty-nine of our 
days. If the period of the earth's rotation 
was greatly altered it would be very detri- 
mental to, if not destructive of, the vegetable 
kingdom. There is an adaptation between 
the structure of plants and the periodical 
order of light and darkness resulting from 
the earth's rotation, which it would be un- 
philosophical to attribute to chance. It is 



— 130 — 

no other than a wise and intentional adjust- 
ment. 

The great physiologists say that animals 
and man himself have a period in their func- 
tions regulated by the duration of the day. 
The inclination to food and sleep particu- 
larly depends on the day's length. The 
day's length could not be shortened or 
lengthened very considerably without grave 
injury to many vital functions of animal life. 

Again the intensity of the force of gravity 
was taken into account in the establishing 
of the laws governing the constant motion 
of the fluid parts in the life of vegetables 
and animals. The force of gravity depends 
upon the mass of the earth. The earth's 
mass might have been greater than Jupiter's 
or less than Mercury's. It could easily have 
been twelve or twenty times greater than it 
is. That would mean that the sap could no 
longer flow upwards in vegetables and that 
animal motions upon the earth would be im- 
possible. 

The sap in vegetables, plants and trees 
flows upwards with great force. A vine in 
the bleeding season can push up its sap in 
a glass tube to the height of twenty-one feet 
above the stump of an amputated branch. 
The force which carries up this sap is a 
mechanical one and is a mixture of capillary 
attraction and endosmose. 



— 131 — 

Now then, we find on the earth these two 
forces of gravity and capillary attraction 
perfectly so adjusted to one another as is 
best suited to the best welfare of vegetable 
life. 

There are many other functions of vege- 
tables too numerous to mention which are 
regulated by and dependent upon the amount 
of the force of gravity of the earth. 

In the muscular powers of animals is 
found another instance of the adjustment 
of organic structure to the force of gravity. 
If gravity on the earth's surface was very 
much greater than it is, animals could 
scarcely crawl on the earth's surface and 
they w^ould be overpowered by the increased 
weight of the atmosphere. 

If the force was very much less, there 
would be no steadiness on the earth's sur- 
face, bodies would slide along with the slight- 
est push and respiration would be impossible 
owing to the thinness of the air. 

The structure of organized beings had 
also to be adapted to the magnitude of the 
ocean. Laplace placed the average depth of 
the ocean at five miles. Recent computa- 
tions have placed it at three miles. An ad- 
dition to the ocean of one half of the present 
waters would drown the globe and make the 
surface of the earth similar to that of the 
planet Mars. 



— 132 — 

If the amount of the waters were decreased 
materially, the average amount of moisture 
in the air would be so diminished that the 
nature of our climates would be radically 
changed. 

The quantity of the atmosphere had to be 
regarded and be adjusted to organized beings, 
plants and animals. If the quantity of the 
air were considerably greater than now, its 
pressure would be detrimental to present or- 
ganized life. Not only that, but everything 
during a tempest would be swept clean 
around the world. Nothing could stand. 
If much less, there would be no respiration 
possible, owing to the rarity of the atmos- 
phere. 

According to the constitution of the pres- 
ent vegetable kingdom the constancy of 
climate at the same place is a necessary con- 
dition for the welfare of the vegetable species 
fixed there. The climate may and does vary 
in different parts of the earth, but in the 
same place from year to year the mean annu- 
al heat and cold, cloud, sunshine, wind, calm, 
and other atmospheric conditions are the 
same. There may be a very hot season or 
a very cold season, but the yearly average 
always remains the same. 

Had the earth an eccentric elliptical orbit, 
such as that of a comet, there would be no 
evenness in the climate of any place on its 



— 133 — 

surface. The heat and cold would alwa3^s 
be changing and varying from extremes of 
heat to extremes of cold and the composition 
of the atmosphere would be changed by the 
condensation of some of its gases by cold. 
This would be absolutely fatal to vegetable 
life as wx know it. Indeed an average an- 
nual change of five degrees would kill all 
the vegetables now growing on our planet. 

There are many varieties of climate on 
the earth, and we find that the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms are fitted for that vari- 
ety in which they are located. Every zone 
of the earth has its peculiar vegetables. 
The tropics have their own vegetables, the 
temperate zones their own, and the frozen 
zones of the poles their own. Bach species 
is exactly suited to its own surroundings 
and the nature of its climate. We have 
thus a variety in the laws of vegetable or- 
ganization wxll adapted to the variety of 
climates ; and by this adaptation the globe 
is clothed with vegetation and peopled with 
animals from pole to pole, while without 
such an adjustment vegetable and animal 
life must have been confined entirely to 
some narrow strip of the earth's surface. 
This is a wise dispensation of providence 
to diffuse life and well-being over the whole 
earth. Man is made for the whole earth 
and adjusted to every climate, so that wher- 



— 134 — 

ever he wanders and sojonrns on the globe 
he will find a plenteous support. 

The average of the climate is constant at 
each place, but this average differs at differ- 
ent places. Many elements combine to pro- 
duce the climate : The temperature of the 
earth, the air, and the water : the amount of 
watery vapor in the atmosphere; together 
with the winds and rains which control the 
equilibrium of the atmosphere. The effect 
of light and electricity must also be con- 
sidered. 

The mass of the earth is so constituted 
that it is slow to conduct heat and conse- 
quently slow to radiate it. If it v/ere differ- 
ently constituted, it might conduct and 
radiate heat very rapidly and thus the earth's 
surface v/ould be entirely unbearable to ani- 
mals and vegetables as now constructed. 

Water is heated differently from solids. 
Solids are heated by conduction but water 
by convection. Water when heated expands 
and becomes lighter and the light water 
ascends and the cool water descends. Thus 
water is heated by a series of contrary cur- 
rents, heated water ascending, and cold water 
descending. When water reaches a certain 
coldness it congeals and becomes ice. We 
have said that heated water is lighter than 
cold water, and that cold water descends to 
the bottom of lake and river. Now, if this 



— 135 — 

law continued to be strictly true when ice 
would be once formed in lakes and rivers 
they would remain frozen for all time. The 
small amount of the surface that would be 
thawed in summer, would again freeze im- 
mediately at the first touch of winter and 
the waters of the earth would be forever a 
mass of ice. Besides destroying all fish life 
it would be very detrimental in many other 
respects to the creatures of the earth. 

There is, however, an exception to this 
law: Water grows heavy and contracts 
with cold until we reach 40"^ Fahrenheit. 
After that, cold makes it expand and grow 
light. Ice is lighter than water and will 
float on the surface. So that when water 
nears the freezing point it ascends to the 
surface and remains on top and the freezing 
of the great bodies of water is averted. 
Here is a violation of a law which must be 
attributed to a great intervention of provi- 
dence. 

Most bodies, and particularly the metals 
are heavier in the solid than liquid state 
and the solid will sink in the liquid. There 
is thus a most beneficial exception in the 
case of water. 

When water is highly heated it rises in 
vapor. We all know the beneficial effects 
of moisture in the atmosphere. 

When we heat ice to produce water the 



— 186 — 

change is very slow and gradual. The heat 
becomes latent until the whole mass reaches 
the same temperature. The same is true 
when water is changed into steam. Other- 
wise all ice would melt instantaneously at 
the first touch of summer and produce awful 
torrents to sweep everything from the earth's 
surface. When sufi&cient heat would be ap- 
plied to water it would also all instantane- 
ously flash into steam. The slow and grad- 
ual change is really a violation of a law. 
Can anyone doubt that this violation was or- 
dained by a wise and beneficent Providence ? 
Moisture in the air is very beneficial. 
But if the atmosphere were composed en- 
tirely of aqueous vapor the consequences 
would be fatal to the well-being of animals 
and plants. The waters near the equator, 
owing to the great heat of these regions, 
would rise in steam. This steam would 
have great rarity and elasticity. It would 
flow towards the cold polar regions and be 
precipitated as rain and snow. The sky of 
the equator would be cloudless, but in other 
latitudes there would be an unbroken shroud 
of clouds, fogs, rains and snows. It is a 
blessed thing for animal and vegetable life 
that the greater part of the atmosphere is 
composed of common air, a perfectly elastic 
fluid that cannot be condensed by cold or 
ordinary pressure. Air and water vapor 



— lo/ — 

combine to give the air better properties 
than either has alone. These two atmos- 
pheres of steam and air are constantly 
heating and cooling each other to the great 
benefit of plants and animals. The mix- 
ture of these two gases having different 
capacities for heat causes a constant upward 
and downward circulation of currents. 

The most violent changes of weather, 
tempests and torrents, are oscillations about 
the average condition belonging to each 
place. The greatest oscillations are limited 
and transient. In the forces that produce 
any derangement of the weather there is a 
provision for making it short and moderate. 
This is a wise and thoughtful provision, as 
the mechanical laws of the atmosphere might 
have been such as to produce complete dis- 
order and irregularity of the weather once 
the equilibrium becomes disturbed. 

Electricity and magnetism, present in the 
earth and atmosphere, have their beneficial 
effects upon plant and animal life. The 
great magnetic and electric storms, too, help 
to purify the air and are of great benefit in 
preserving it from corruption. 

Light is as necessary for the well-being 
of plants ordinarily as air or moisture. De- 
prived of light they may last for a time, but 
gradually the green or chlorofile disappears 
and white takes its place. 



— 138- 

Tlie chief effects of light regard the 
leaves. Under the influence of light the 
leaves of plants take carbonic acid from the 
air, appropriate the carbon, and set free 
sweet oxygen. Remove light and this proc- 
ess ceases, indeed, carbonic acid is given off 
from the leaves instead of being imbibed. 

An important office of the air is the con- 
duction of sound. In order that sound may 
fulfill its purpose in the economy of animal 
and human life it must have certain proper- 
ties depending upon the nature of the air, 
such as differences of loudness, pitch, quality 
and articulation. It was indeed by a refined 
and skillful adaptation applied with a wise 
design that the air was made capable of 
conveying these differences at the same 
time, that the organs were made fit to pro- 
duce them. Certainly a wdse intelligence 
must have adapted the organism of the ear 
to the constitution of the atmosphere. 

The Atmosphere. — The atmosphere con- 
sidered as a whole with its combined uses is 
truly w^onderful. It diffuses and tempers 
the heat of different climiates. By a con- 
stant circulation of the watery part of the 
atmosphere between its upper and lower 
regions it is the means of forming clouds 
and rain. The blowing of winds from all 
quarters perpetually restores the equilibri- 
um of heat and moisture. It is everywhere 



— 139 — 

present and almost uniform in its qnantity, 
and it is the most important material of 
the growth and sustenance of plants and 
animals. It is a means of communication 
between intelligent beings by being a medi- 
um of the propagation of sound waves. It 
is scarcely ever in the way. We put forth 
our hand and push it aside without being 
even aware that it is near us. Without air 
we should see nothing, except objects on 
which the sun's rays fell, directly or by re- 
flection. It is the air that converts sun- 
beams into daylight, it diffuses light and 
fills the space in which we are with illumi- 
nation. 

Again the atmosphere is so organized that 
the ratio of its many ingredients has been 
preserved through all geological time, al- 
though circumstances might seem to point 
to a profound instability in their relations 
to each other. One of the ingredients in 
the air is carbonic acid gas or carbon diox- 
ide. Its presence in the atmosphere is ab- 
solutely necessary for the preservation of 
organic life, as the plants depend upon it 
for their sustenance. To serve its purpose 
in the air it should exist in a certain pro- 
portion only of the whole weight of the at- 
mosphere. This proportion must be not 
less than the one thousandth and not more 
than the one hundredth of the atmospheric 



— 140 — 

mass. If the amount of this gas should 
become much less than it now is, vegetable 
life would cease; if much greater animal 
life would disappear. Now it is a well 
known fact and admitted by geologists that 
more than one hundred times as much car- 
bon has passed through the air into the 
strata of the earth's crust since organic life 
began on the globe than has at any time 
existed in the atmospheric envelope. There 
must be skillful design here to preserve this 
very nice and accurate adjustment through 
such an extraordinarily long interval and 
under such a great variety of changes. 

The atmosphere is chiefly composed of 
the two gases, Oxygen and Nitrogen, mixed 
together in the proportion of twenty-one 
parts of Oxygen to sevent3^-nine of Nitro- 
gen. The other ingredients of the air, but 
in relatively very much smaller proportions, 
are carbonic acid and water}^ vapor, with 
traces of ammonia, carburetted hydrogen, 
the odoriferous matter of flowers and other 
volatile substances. 

In the atmosphere the Oxygen and Nitro- 
gen are not chemically combined, but merely 
mechanically mixed. Although in the at- 
mosphere Oxygen and Nitrogen are simply 
mixed together, yet they are found in nature 
chemically united in five different combina- 
tions. Nitric acid or '' Aqua Fortis,'' the 



— 141 — 

source whence all the other compounds of 
these two gases are obtained, is a most deadly 
poison. If they were chemically combined 
in the atmosphere instead of being mixed 
mechanically, no animal life would be possi- 
ble on the earth's surface. 

Nitrogen seems to be present in the air 
solely to dilute the Oxygen. If Oxygen 
prevailed in the atmosphere in much greater 
proportion than it now does, animals would 
live too rapidly and soon expire and com- 
bustion would be supported too fiercely and 
everything inflammable on the whole globe 
would soon be consumed. 

All the ingredients of the air are of differ- 
ent specific gravities, and really, in obedience 
to the laws of gravitation, should lie in 
layers or strata at distances from the earth 
corresponding to their separate densities 
and float one upon another as oil and water 
do when mingled. 

According to the universal law of gravity 
the carbonic acid, being much heavier than 
the other gases, should lie in a layer at the 
bottom of the atmosphere and just over the 
earth's surface. It is computed that if all 
the carbonic acid were gathered together in 
the lower regions of the atmosphere it would 
form a stratum completely around the earth 
just thirteen feet high. Were this the case, 



— 142 — 

as it should be if this universal law were 
obeyed, all animals would perish. 

The deadly effects of too great an abun- 
dance of carbonic acid gas in the air is easily 
demonstrated. There is a valley in the 
island of Java where the soil emits so much 
of this acid that no animal can live there, 
and the birds that try to fly through it, fall 
down dead. There is a grotto at Pozzuolo, 
near Naples, into which a man can walk 
without injury, but in the atmosphere of 
which a dog becomes immediately asphixi- 
ated. The heavy gas emitted from the soil 
lies near the surface ; the man escapes it, 
but the dog inhales it with deadly effects. 

Because, however, of a violation of the 
universal law of gravity in the case of min- 
gling gases, when two gases of different 
specific gravities are mixed together, the}^ 
cannot remain separate, as fluids of differ- 
ent densities do, but diffuse themselves uni- 
formly throughout the whole space which 
both occupy. Hence the composition of 
the air, wherever examined, over level plains 
or on the tops of the loftiest mountains is 
found to never vary. 

Here again is a palpable violation of a 
most universal law for a most beneficent 
purpose. 

Light. — As the eye is made for light, so 
light must have been made among other 



-143 — 

ends for the eye. Reflection and refraction 
are indispensable properties of light ; and it 
appears that it was necessary that light 
should possess such properties in order that 
it might form a medium of communication 
between man and the external world. Its 
power of passing through transparent media 
as the air is given it in order that it might 
enlighten the earth ; its property of reflection 
to make colors visible ; and that of refrac- 
tion that it might enable the eye through 
its lenses and humors to discriminate figures 
and position. 

Heat. — The matter of heat is certainly a 
most vital one for the well-being of organ- 
ized life on the earth. A certain limited 
range of temperature must be maintained 
upon the earth's surface to make living or- 
ganisms possible. The nicety and delicacy 
of the adjustment necessary to sustain this 
limited range may be perceived when we 
consider the vast range in heat vv^ithin the 
solar system. The temperature of the sun 
is in the neighborhood of a million degrees 
Fahr., that of the earth's interior probably 
above ten thousand degrees, and that of 
space four hundred degrees Fahr. below zero. 

In this great scale of heat, organic life 
can occupy only the narrow space of about 
one hundred degrees, from zero to lOO, or 



— 144 — 

about the ten thousandth part of the heat 
variation afforded by the solar scheme. 

Let us take a line a million inches or i6 
miles long and let each inch represent one 
degree Fahr. of heat. If on that line 8 ft. 
of space be marked off near one end, this 
trifling part of the whole length will give 
us a representation of the proportions be- 
tween the temperatures of the solar system 
and those in which organic life can be main- 
tained. Should the heat of the earth's sur- 
face be materially changed from this narrow 
limit, the destruction of organic life would 
soon follow. But we know from fossils and 
other indices that organic life has existed 
on the earth during all geological time. So 
that during this vast period of time this 
delicate range of temperature has been won- 
derfully maintained amidst every fluctuation 
of circumstances. 

Could blind chance unerringly select this 
one condition of a possible ten thousand? 
It would be folly to think so. 

Looking around us on the earth and see- 
ing every available point on its surface, the 
spaces of air, the depths of the ocean, the 
darkness of caverns and the surfaces of 
snow-fields teeming with life, it might ap- 
pear to us that life has a power to maintain 
itself under a great variety of conditions, 
but when we really compare this little dot 



— 145 — 

of an area occupied by organic life with the 
extent of the solar system alone, it would 
appear insignificant. Even scientists who 
deny a special creation of organisms admit 
that the bare existence of life depending 
upon conditions so limited, is a miracle. 
Since the beginning of geological times, 
there has in all probability never been a 
time when at the height of six miles above 
the earth's surface, even over the equator 
the heat necessary for animal and plant life 
has existed. 

On the different planets as on the earth, 
life is limited to those worlds where a tem- 
perature a little above the freezing and 
below the boiling point of water is main- 
tained. This is of absolute necessity seeing 
that solar irradiation is essential to the sus- 
tenance of organic life. In the face of this 
condition animal life is not possible in the 
other planets of our system. The outer 
planets are partially in a glowing condition 
and too hot for life. The heat of Mercury 
and Venus is too great, and their climatic 
vicissitudes too sudden and violent, and 
Mars entirely too cold, for the existence of 
life. We have the testimony of Linnaeus 
that no vegetable could live on Mars, owing 
to its coldness and the extreme length of 
its year. 

Thus organic life is necessarily limited to 

10 



— 146 — 

an almost inconceivably small part of the 
space and mass of the visible universe, and 
also to what we may fairly term compara- 
tively a moment of time. To select the best 
in every instance, and out of such a vast 
number of possible conditions, argues a de- 
signing mind of infinite wisdom and fore- 
sight. 

Stability of the Solar System. — The 
orbit or path of the earth around the sun 
is almost a circle. This is important and 
cannot be due to chance. When a body is 
projected into space in the sun's neighbor- 
hood, it will form an orbit around the sun 
of some kind. If we suppose the matter 
left to chance, it would be infinitely against 
the circle, as there is but one circle and a 
possible infinite number of ellipses or ovals. 
The orbits of all the other planets, with the 
exception of the two smallest, Mars and 
Mercury, are almost circular. This cannot 
be chance. Mercury and Mars being small 
bodies, the ellipticity of their orbits can do 
no injury to the system. If the orbits of 
the great planets had this ellipticity the 
whole solar scheme would fall to pieces. 
The stability of the scheme is not due to 
chance, but to wise design and intelligent 
adjustment. 

If the paths of the planets were drawn on 
a small scale, as upon a large board, they 



— 147 — 

would be absolutely perfect circles. This 
utterly precludes the action of chance in 
their formation. Chance could no more do it 
than the accidental dashes of a brush in the 
hands of a blind man would make on a wall 
eight perfectly concentric circles. More- 
over, if the earth's orbit was much more 
elliptical than it is, such, for instance, that 
the diameter would be as four to one, the 
inequality of heat on the earth's surface at 
different times would be so great as to de- 
stroy all living creatures. 

'^Of all the innumerable possible cases of 
systems, governed by the existing laws of 
force and motion, that one is selected which 
alone produces such steadfast periodicity, 
such a constant average of circumstances as 
are, so far as conceivable, necessary condi- 
tions, for the existence of organic and sen- 
tient life." (Whewell). 

Stability of the Ocean. — The stability 
of the ocean is another instance of the wise 
care of the Creator. The density of the 
earth is 5.55 times that of water and this 
establishes the stability of the seas. If the 
density of the earth were equal to Saturn's, 
which is less than a seventh part of the 
earth's, there would be an unstable equilibri- 
um of the ocean, and the waters would rush to 
one side of the earth, completely deluging it. 

One of the most beautiful hypotheses ac- 



— 148 — 

counting for the present scheme of worlds 
around us, is the Nebular. It carries us 
back, according to its famous author, to a 
distant period when there existed in space 
a boundless abyss of luminous matter so 
rare as to be barely existing. But who 
placed this luminous matter in space, and 
who gave it luminosity? Who gave light 
and matter their salutary properties, so that 
this vapor should condense into beautiful 
planets and a bright central sun, instead of 
dark and barren stones ? Certainly an all- 
wise Creator. 

In the mechanical laws governing the 
universe of matter, we see wise design and 
provision for the welfare and stability of 
the system. The laws of gravitation might 
be different and subvertive even. The law 
of gravitation is that matter attracts in pro- 
portion to its mass and inversely as the 
square of the distance. Every particle of 
matter in the universe attracts every other 
inversely as the square of the distance. 
This attraction as the inverse square of the 
distance seems the best and wisest for the 
preservation of our system of an innumer- 
able number of other possible laws. If the 
attraction were directly as the distance, the 
earth would lose its attraction for bodies on 
its own surface, owing to the great mass of 
the sun and the other planets. A body re- 



— 149 — 

ceiving the sliglitest impulse, would sweep 
around the earth perpetually as a satellite. 
Motion on the earth's surface would be im- 
possible. 

If the law had been inversely as the 4th, 
5th, 6th power and so on, the earth's path 
about the sun would be a spiral, and it 
would be constantly either advancing or re- 
ceding from the central luminary. Indeed 
if any other laws of gravity had been adapt- 
ed by the Creator besides the present ones, 
the earth's path would be constantly chang- 
ing to the great detriment of creatures and 
all regularity would be lost. 

Gravitation itself is not necessarily an 
.essential property of matter in the same 
sense as inertia, extension, mobility and 
impenetrability. Now if matter had not 
received this universal but not necessary 
property, what would become of our system 
of worlds ? 

One of the most striking features of the 
mechanical laws of gravity and motion is 
their great simplicity. 

In the laws of motion we see very striking 
design. The first law of motion or inertia 
is that a body will perpetually remain in a 
state of motion or rest, unless acted upon 
by some extraneous force. There might 
have been a hundred laws instead of this 
simple one. The most perfect instance of 



— 150 — 

this law is the rotation of the earth on its 
axis. The duration of this rotation has not 
changed the hundredth part of a second in 
historic times. If this law had been differ- 
ent, the motion of the earth on its axis 
would grow slower and slower, its revolu- 
tion around the sun would become gradually 
less rapid, all motions would cease and soon 
every thing would come to rest. This 
beautiful law is evidently a wise design of 
Providence. 

Another most beneficial property of mat- 
ter is friction. Without friction we neither 
could stand nor walk, nor sit steadily, every- 
thing would be constantly sliding on the 
earth's surface, all w^ould be in a condition 
of unstable equilibrium. Though friction 
is universal, j^et it is not necessarily a 
property of matter. Friction does not stop 
the motions of the heavenly bodies. Thus 
where friction is beneficial as on the earth's 
surface it is active, where it would be pre- 
judicial as in the heavens it is absent. 

The structure of man, of itself so nicel}^ 
and wisely adjusted to the inorganic laws 
and elements around him, and particularly 
that of his senses, is certainly evidence of 
the existence of a most beneficent Provi- 
dence. If man's material parts speak of his 
Creator's wise foresight and beneficence. 



— 151 — 

how much more strongly do his moral and 
intellectual parts, his mind and conscience? 

The omnipotence of the Creator is shown 
in the vastness of the universe. The tele- 
scope discerns in both hemispheres nearly 
one hundred millions of suns, each of them, 
we know by analogy, is accompanied by 
many planets and satellites and yet space 
is so extensive, that it appears to be prac- 
tically empty. It would require light travel- 
ing at the rate of 185,000 miles a second, 
three years and seven months to journey 
from the nearest fixed star. 

The microscope shows infinity in another 
direction, in smallness. A single drop of 
pond water contains a score of living beings 
moving with prodigious velocity and all 
having perfectly organized systems. 

The awful rapidity of the motions of the 
earth, the planets and the other heavenly 
bodies gives us another idea of the vastness 
of the world. The earth's motion of revo- 
lution around the sun, 19 miles a second, is 
65 times greater than the highest velocity 
of a cannon ball. Others of the heavenly 
bodies move more rapidly still. The veloci- 
ty of a comet in its perihelion swoop around 
the sun reaches 300 miles a second. 

Who then, may we ask, gave matter and 
its elements their properties and laws? 
May we not confidently reply, God ? 



— 152 — 

^^ The laws of material nature operate at 
all times and in all places. But a law sup- 
poses an agent and a power, for it is the 
mode according to which the agent pro- 
ceeds, the order according to which the 
power acts. Without the presence of such 
an agent, of such a power, conscious of the 
relations on which the law depends, pro- 
ducing the effects which the law prescribes, 
the law can have no efficacy, no existence.^' 
(Whewell). 

The greatest and wisest of modern scien- 
tists have acknowledged in unmistakable 
language the guiding hand of an all-wise 
personal Creator and Governor in the world. 

^^ Who in this fair temple would place 
this lamp (the sun) in any other or better 
place, than there whence it may illuminate 
the whole ? We find then under this ordi- 
nation an admirable symmetry of the world 
and a certain harmonious connection of the 
motion and magnitude of the orbs, such as 
in any other way cannot be found. Thus 
the progressions and regressions of the 
planets all arise from the same cause, the 
motion of the earth. And that no such 
movements are seen in the fixed stars, ar- 
gues their immense distance from us, which 
causes the apparent magnitude of the earth's 
annual course to become evanescent. So 
great, in short, is this divine fabric of the 



— 163 — 

great and good God ; this best and useful 
artificer of the universe/' (Copernicus Lib. 
I, c. x). 

^^I beseech my reader, that not unmind- 
ful of the divine goodness bestowed on man, 
he do with me praise and celebrate the wis- 
dom and greatness of the Creator, v/hich I 
open to him from a more inw^ard explication 
of the form of the world, from a searching 
of causes, from a detection of the errors of 
vision : and that thus, not only in the firm- 
ness and stability of the earth, he perceive 
with gratitude the preservation of all living 
things in nature as the gift of God, but 
also that in its motion, so recondite, so ad- 
mirable, he acknowledges the wisdom of the 
Creator. But him who is too dull to receive 
this science, or too weak to believe the 
Copernican system without harm to his 
piety, him, I say, I advise that, leaving the 
school of astronomy, and condemning, if he 
please, any doctrines of the philosophers, he 
follow his own path, and desist from his 
wandering through the universe, and lifting 
up his natural ej^es, with which alone he 
can see, pour himself out from his own 
heart in praise of God, the Creator; being 
certain that he gives no less worship to God 
than the astronomer, to whom God has 
given to see more clearly with his inward 
eye, and who, for what he has himself dis- 



— 154 — 

covered, both can and will glorify God.'' 
(Kepler). 

^^This beautiful system of sun, planets 
and comets, could have its origin in no 
other way than by the purpose and com- 
mand of an intelligent and powerful Being. 
He governs all things, not as the soul of the 
world, but as the Lord of the universe. He 
is not only God, but Lord or Governor. 
We know him only by his properties and 
attributes, by the wise and admirable struc- 
ture of things around us, and by their final 
causes ; we admire him on account of his 
perfections, we venerate and worship him 
on account of his government.'' (Newton, 
Principia.) 

Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton are the 
great names which mark the progress of 
astronomy. 

'' While it is permitted us to speculate 
concerning the constitution of the world, we 
are also taught, perhaps in order that the 
activity of the human mind may not pause 
or languish, that our powers do not enable 
us to comprehend the works of His hands. 
May success therefore attend this intellectual 
exercise, thus permitted and appointed for 
us; by which we recognize and admire the 
greatness of God the more, in proportion 
as we find ourselves the less able to pene- 



— 155 — 

trate the profound abysses of His wisdom.'^ 
(Galileo, Dialogues). 

Galileo was the discoverer of the laws of 
motion, the founder of modern mechanics 
and the father of experimental philosophy. 

'' Nature has perfections in order to show 
that she is the image of God, and defects in 
order to show that she is only His image.'' 

^' In almost all ages and countries the 
generality of philosophers and contempla- 
tive men were persuaded of the existence of 
a Deity from the consideration of the phe- 
nomena of the universe; whose fabric and 
conduct they rationally concluded could not 
justly be ascribed either to chance or to any 
other cause than a Divine Being.'' (Pascal, 
Pensies.) 

" I am by all means for encouraging the 
contemplation of the celestial part of the 
world, and the shining globes that adorn it, 
and especially the sun and moon, in order 
to raise our admiration of the stupendous 
power and wisdom of Him, who was able to 
frame such immense bodies ; and notwith- 
standing their vast bulk and scarce conceiv- 
able rapidity, keep them for so many ages 
constant, both to the lines and degrees of 
their motion, without interfering with one 
another. And doubtless we ought to return 
thanks and praises to the Divine goodness 



— 156- 

for having so placed the sun and moon, and 
determined the former, or else the earth, to 
move in particular lines for the good of 
men and other animals ; and how disadvan- 
tageous it would have been to the inhab- 
itants of the earth, if the luminaries had 
moved after a different manner.'^ (Boyle, 
Essays.) 

Boyle and Pascal were the persons mainly 
active in developing the more peculiar prin- 
ciples of the science of Hydrostatics. 

The sciences that have reached their 
almost finished and complete form, in which 
an extensive and varied collection of phe- 
nomena, and their proximate causes, have 
been reduced to a few simple general laws, 
are Physical Astronomy, Mathematics, Me- 
chanics and Hydrostatics. After these in 
order of development come Optics and 
Electricity. 

Many of our multiple modern sciences 
are very crude and mascelent, and based 
upon some of the most erroneous and worth- 
less guesses. They are called sciences 
simply through courtesy. 

Clerk Maxwell, one of the wisest and 
greatest of recent physicists, said a short 
time before his death, that he had scruti- 
nized all the agnostic hypotheses he knew 
of, and found that they one and all needed 
a God to make them workable. 



— 157 — 

Chapter IX. 

ASTRONOMY OF THE BIBIvE. 

The Bible points out the chief attributes 
of the Godhead as unity, omnipotence, in- 
finite wisdom, absolute unchangeableness, 
eternity and supreme goodness. 

The teaching of astronomy concerning 
the attributes of the Creator of the mate- 
rial universe is in striking accord in this 
respect with the revelations of Scripture. 
Astronomy declares in clearest tones the 
unity of God. It is most evident that the 
structure of the physical universe has been 
planned and executed by one mind and one 
hand. 

The same great laws of motion and gravi- 
tation govern matter everywhere in the cos- 
mos. The matter of all the individual 
worlds of space is identical as far as being 
controlled by these grand forces. 

These same identical laws govern the 
mightiest sun, the tiniest satellite, the mas- 
sive planet and the evanescent comet. 

The laws of gravitation and motion reach 
out into interstellar space, and direct there 
the conduct of the stars. 

Many systems of binary stars are well 
known to be governed by these laws as rec- 
ognized by us in our own solar scheme. 



— 158 — 

Newton verified his great discovery by 
showing that it first extended to the moon 
and afterwards to the other bodies of the 
system. Other great astronomers traced 
its action to the comets and stars. The 
orbits of the binary stars have been com- 
puted and the return of periodic comets 
most accurately predicted. So that in the 
vast universe with its myriad worlds there 
is unity of design, matter and law. One 
mind must have conceived the infinite plan 
and one mind wrought out its accomplish- 
ment. 

Astronomy teaches the omnipotence of 
the framer of the universe. The work of 
dynamite in moving enormous masses and 
the rapid rolling of heavy trains impress us 
with an idea of power. But look at the 
evidences of power in nature. The earth is 
nearly 8,000 miles in diameter and yet it 
speeds along in its orbit around the sun at 
the rate of 19 miles a second, or with 65 
times the rapidity of the initial velocity of 
a cannon ball. 

The moon and other satellites, and the 
planets all have rapid motions in space. 
The mighty Jupiter, twelve hundred times 
the size, and three hundred and ten times 
the weight of the earth, is flying through 
space at the rate of eight miles a second. 

The sun itself, thirteen hundred thousand 



— 159 — 

times the size of the earth and 326 thousand 
times its mass, is rushing onward toward 
Hercules at the rate of four miles a second. 

The binary stars before mentioned are re- 
volving around each other with rapid speed, 
and the great suns of space are all traveling 
in widely extended orbits with high veloci- 
ties. The bright Sirius, more than a thou- 
sand times the volume, and twenty times 
the mass of our own sun, is marching on at 
a rate of fourteen miles a second, and Can- 
opus of the Southern Sky, the mighty King 
of suns, moves in its majestic course at a 
high rate of speed. 

Nothing less than an omnipotent arm 
could guide the awful momenta of these 
vast worlds, for the hand that would stretch 
out even and stop the little moon would 
have to be all powerful. These mighty 
forces of the heavens truly speak of omnip- 
otence. 

Again, the celestial mechanism demands 
supreme wisdom in the Machinist. Nothing 
could point out more clearly the great wis- 
dom of the Architect of the skies, than the 
discovery of the true system of the world by 
Copernicus. The old or false system with 
cycles and epicycles, centrics and eccentrics, 
with its cumbrous complexity, is in marked 
contrast to the real beauty and simplicity of 
the true system. 



— IGO — 

The beautiful laws by which our own 
scheme of worlds is controlled, and equilibri- 
um preserved among so many great revolv- 
ing orbs around a central mass, of itself alone 
demonstrates the wisdom of the Creator. 

One of the most difficult problems of 
mathematics is that of the three bodies. 
When three bodies are launched into space, 
it requires the highest mental powders of the 
astronomer to compute their paths. When 
this is complicated with scores of other 
bodies, adding their mutual disturbances and 
multiplying perturbations, it requires in- 
finite wisdom to give each its orbit so that 
it will hold its own path and not destroy or 
materially interfere with the paths of its 
neighbors. And still greater wisdom, if 
possible, is needed to marshal the mighty 
hosts of heaven, the hundred millions of 
rushing suns and their vast retinues. 

The science of astronomy teaches that 
God is unchangeable. Without their con- 
stancy and invariability, Newton could never 
have discovered his law of gravitation, nor 
Kepler and Galileo their laws of motion. 

The laws governing the universe of mat- 
ter are absolutely invariable. 

The time of the rotation of the earth ^on 
its axis has not changed a fraction of a sec- 
ond within historic times. So uniform are 
the motions of the moon and the planets 



-161 — 

that mathematicians can compute the times 
of eclipses and occultations to within a small 
fraction of a second. 

The guiding hand of the celestial ma- 
chinery has impressed it with its own im- 
mutability. It was thought for a time that 
the motion of the moon Avas changing^ and 
that she was gradually but surely slipping 
away from her path. It has been found 
that this acceleration, as it is called, of the 
moon's motion is due to the united influ- 
ences of the planets on the earth's orbit, 
widening it and making it more circular. 
But after a vast period this will correct 
itself, and the earth return to its original 
path. 

Astronomy demonstrates that God is ubiq- 
uitous, or as the Scripture has it, that He 
fills immensity by His presence. As the 
power of the telescope grew greater and 
greater vast numbers of new stars were re- 
vealed, buried deeper and deeper in the 
realms of space. 

Lord Rosse's mighty reflector discloses 
stars sunk so far in space that it would re- 
quire light speeding at the rate of 185,000 
miles a second, sixty thousand years to 
travel over the distance between them and 
the earth. 

If the powers of the optic tube could be 

increased, stars still farther away would be- 
ll 



— 162 — 

come visible. God's power reaches out to 
all these bodies. If his sustaining hand 
relaxed for an instant, all would be immedi- 
ate chaos. 

God's universe also points strikingly to 
his eternity. The physical universe is con- 
stantly changing; it had certainly a begin- 
ning, and will have an end. God's eternity 
can be shown from His works, since they 
are not eternal, only by analogy. The strata 
of the earth show the great time it has en- 
dured. The stars point to countless ages 
through which they have existed. There 
are stars so far in space, that if now de- 
stroyed, an inhabitant of the earth would 
not know of the disappearance for millions 
of years. The light beam from that annihi- 
lated sun would carry the news of its former 
existence for millions of ages. The tele- 
scope has demonstrated that many of the 
stars revolve around each other. One of 
these revolutions would require an immense 
time for its accomplishment. 

The spectroscope tells us that the most 
distant suns have motions. All move around 
centers, and these again around other cen- 
ters. It would take almost an eternity for 
the countless orbs of space to perform a 
complete cycle of the skies. If the creatures 
have so great an age, what of the Creator? 
Is not his existence an eternal one? 



— 163 — 

When we examine the laws of the phys- 
ical world and see their beauty and benefi- 
cence, may we not also say that their framer 
has supreme goodness, since these laws have 
been selected from an almost infinite number 
of possible ones simply for their adaptation 
to the happiness and well-being of living 
creatures ? 

The great laws governing the universe 
of matter have been but recently discovered 
and understood by man. They were entire- 
ly unknown to the ancients. How could the 
writers of the Bible have discovered these 
attributes of God? May we not truly claim 
that they could only obtain this knowledge 
from divine revelation ? From Inspiration ? 
This will appear all the more evident w^hen 
we know that the knowledge of these sub- 
lime attributes of God has escaped the learn- 
ing and subtilty of the Greek, and the 
profundity of the Roman. Look at the 
puerile and often debased characters the 
Greeks and Romans gave their gods. Surely 
the Hebrew penmen were inspired. 

Outside the Pentateuch there are but few 
allusions in the Bible to astronomical facts. 
In that wonderful book, there are indeed 
illustrations drawn from every department 
of human knowledge, from astronomy, op- 
tics, meteorology and natural history. 



— 164 — 

The astronomical allusions in the Book 
of Job are most extraordinary, when we con- 
sider its vast antiquity, and that the knowl- 
edge of the true system of the world and 
of the great laws of matter is comparatively 
of recent date. The questions asked in the 
Book of Job, under the circumstances, could 
be prompted alone by inspiration. 

The ancients knew very little of astrono- 
my. What little they did know for the 
most part came under a false system, the 
Ptolemaic. 

The first astronomers, by universal assent, 
were the Chaldeans. They had a small cata- 
logue of eclipses, discovered the ^^saros^^ or 
lunar period, and invented the zodiac. They 
determined the length of the tropical year, 
the equinoctial and solstitial points, and used 
the clepsydra, the gnomon and the hemi- 
spherical dial. This is a summary of their 
astronomical attainments. 

Now the questions asked in Job are as apt 
and appropriate to-day, in the light of mod- 
ern astronomy, the most perfect of the 
sciences, as they were in the days of Job. 
^^ Where wast thou when I laid the founda- 
tions of the earth? Declare, if thou hast 
understanding. Who hath laid the meas- 
ures thereof, if thou knowest ; or who hath 
stretched the line upon it ? Whereupon are 
the foundations thereof fastened ; or who 



— 165 — 

hath laid the corner-stone thereof? When 
the morning stars sang together, and all the 
sons of God shouted for joy?'^ The He- 
brew word from which ^^ foundations'^ is 
translated, really means sockets or pivots, 
and the word from which ^^ fastened '' is de- 
rived, is best rendered by '' made to sink.'' 

This question is as unanswerable to-day 
in all the light of modern science, as in the 
time of Job. We might, indeed, answer 
that the world is sustained by gravitation. 
The laws of gravitation are known, but 
what gravitation is in itself, except that it 
is a manifestation of God's power, is as un- 
answerable now as in the days of antiquity. 

Another sentence of Job: '^He stretcheth 
out the north over the empty place, and 
hangeth the earth upon nothing." The 
real void part of the heavens is the north, 
it is a region of vacuity. As we approach 
the Galaxy or Milky Way, the heavens be- 
come richer and richer in star dust. And 
how true the expression, that the earth 
hangeth upon nothing? 

Another interrogatory is : " Or who shut 
up the sea with doors when it broke forth, 
as if it had issued out of the womb ? 

When I made the cloud, the garment 
thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling- 
band for it, and broke up for it my decreed 
place, and set bars and doors, and said, 



— 166 — 

hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther ; 
and here shall thy proud waves be stayed? ^^ 
The translators of the Bible found great 
difficulty in rendering into the vernacular 
scientific matters, of which they themselves 
and the age in w^hich they lived, were not 
only ignorant, but even entertained false 
notions, and in some instances the sense of 
the original was a little bent to make it the 
more intelligible. Instead of ^^and broke 
up for it my decreed place ^^ in the inter- 
rogation, the choicer rendering would be 
^^established my decree upon it.'' 

Now truly the adjustments by which the 
ocean limits are fixed, are most wonderful. 
If the earth had only the density of Saturn 
or Uranus, the water on its surface would 
be in a condition of unstable equilibrium 
and the slightest disturbance of the water 
would cause it to rush to one side. The 
earth would float on the water like a globe 
of cork, and be tossed and rolled over and 
over, and every part would be alternately 
submerged. Even should the earth retain 
its present specific gravity, if its orbit and 
those of the moon and planets were materi- 
ally changed, tides could be produced, sub- 
merging successively the whole earth, and 
God's decree, ^^ Hitherto shalt thou come, 
and no farther; and here shall thy proud 
waves be stayed," would be made void. 



— 167 — 

Again God asks Job : '' Hast thou com- 
manded the morning since thy days, and 
caused the day-spring from on high to know 
his place? That it might take hold of the 
ends of the earth. It is turned as clay to 
the seal, and they stand as a garment. '^ 
God intimates to his servant that the day- 
spring has its appointed place, and never 
changes, that morning appears with unfail- 
ing regularity and precision. And, indeed, 
nothing can be truer. There is nothing in 
the universe more unchanging than the 
motion of the earth's rotation, the cause of 
the day-spring, of morning and night. For 
three thousand years it has not perceptibly 
changed. This is undying precision. The 
other motions that w^e know of in the uni- 
verse vary. The motion of the earth in its 
orbit, of the moon, of the planets, of comets, 
are variable. This rotation is alone un- 
changing. 

Should the velocity of this rotation grow 
greater or less, then disorder would enter 
the animal and vegetable kingdoms, for the 
temperature of the various regions of the 
earth w^ould become deranged and destruc- 
tion would inevitably follow. 

Again, should this rotation grow slower, 
the waters would lose their present equili- 
brium, and the centrifugal strain being re- 
laxed, they would rush madly upon the polar 



regions. Should the rotation be increased 
in speed, they would flow wildly towards the 
equator with the increase of centrifugal 
force. Hence the wonderful truth of the 
saying of Job: ^'He hath compassed the 
waters with bounds, until the day and night 
shall come to an end/' If day and night 
should come to an end, the rotation of the 
earth would cease, and the waters would no 
longer be compassed w4th bounds. 

^^It is turned as clay to the seal, and they 
stand as a garment.'' This sentence might 
be interpreted as follows : The full blaze of 
the sun does not break forth instantly on 
its rising in the morning. The east is 
illuminated gradually and slowly. The at- 
mosphere refracts the early beams of morn- 
ing, bending them down, and curving them 
round the earth and moulding them to its 
form as clay to the seal, and standing about 
the earth as a garment of light. 

Seeing that the ancients could know 
nothing about the true system of the w^orld, 
and of the beauty and grand simplicity of 
its laws, the astronomic language of the 
Bible is marvellously apt and appropriate 
in the light of modern science. Besides the 
sublime simplicity of the language of Moses, 
the doctrines of the Persians, Egyptians and 
Greeks even concerning the structure of the 
world is ridiculous. ^' In the beginning. 



— 169 — 

God created the heavens and the earth.'' 
The Egyptians ascribed the origin of all 
things to a winged ^ggj the Persians to a 
gloomy atmosphere, the lonians to water, 
Epicurus to a fortunate gathering together 
of atoms, and Zeno to the energy of matter. 
All but Moses beg the original question. 
For whence came the Qgg, the wind, the 
water, the atom, and the matter? 

The language of inspiration proclaims 
that " the heavens declare the glory of God, 
the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day 
unto day uttereth speech, and night unto 
night showeth forth knowledge.'' What 
language could be truer or more just. Look 
at the Galaxy, the Milky Way, our own 
universe with its hundred million suns and 
their retinues, all governed by the same 
simple and wise laws. Look far beyond our 
universe into other universes even more 
populous in suns than our own, and still on 
beyond the reach of any telescopic power or 
plummet, and we must confess that the 
heavens do indeed declare their Maker's 
glory. 

God, wishing to illustrate the perpetuity 
of his covenant with Israel, says: ^^Thus 
saith the Lord, who giveth the sun for a 
light by day, and the ordinances of the moon 
and the stars for a light by night, if these 
ordinances depart from before me, then may 



— 170 — 

my promise fail.'^ This alludes to the in- 
variability of the earth's rotation. 

Again, the Hebrew prophet represents 
God as saying: ^^ If heaven above can be 
measured, and the foundations of the earth 
searched out from beneath, then, and not 
till then will I cast off my people.'' ''If ye 
can break my covenant of the daj^, and my 
covenant of the night, and that there should 
not be day and night in their season ; then 
may my covenant be broken with my serv- 
ant David.'' 

''As the host of heaven cannot be num- 
bered, so will I multiply the seed of David." 

"If my covenant be not with day and 
night, and if I have not appointed the ordi- 
nances of heaven and earth, then will I cast 
away the seed of Jacob." 

These passages simply intimate that the 
laws governing the physical world are un- 
changeable, which is absolutely true, as we 
have seen in the light of modern science. 

That neither the stars can be numbered 
nor heaven measured is equally true, as is 
demonstrated by the telescope. The stars 
visible to the unaided eye have been accu- 
rately counted and are found to number 
between six and seven thousand. But the 
more powerful the telescope used, the greater 
the number of the stars revealed and the 
deeper space looks. Every new increase of 



— 171 — 

telescopic power gives an increase in the 
number of stars rendered visible, and to the 
extent of space, until finally it is admitted 
that there is limit neither to the number of 
stars, nor to the expanse of the ether. 

Again in Job: ^^ Knowest thou the ordi- 
nances of heaven, and canst thou set the 
dominion thereof on earth.'' The heavens 
and the earth are always inseparably united 
in the language of the Bible, while in the 
records of all other primitive nations they 
are invariably treated as entirely separated. 
The latest teaching of modern science is 
that they are one and inseparable, governed 
by the same laws of attraction and motion. 

The spectroscope shows that the stars are 
suns similarly composed as our own. Many 
elements found upon the earth have been 
discovered and identified by spectrum analy- 
sis to be present in the sun and stars, such 
as hydrogen, sodium, iron, magnesium and 
others. 

Whenever allusion is made in the Bible 
to the physical heavens it would seem to 
have been written by one endowed with the 
most profound and accurate knowledge of 
the facts and laws of modern science. The 
astronomic illustrations in the Bible were 
most appropriate to the age in which they 
were written, and are equally, indeed, more 
strongly apt at the present time. This is 



— 172- 

not accident. It would be unphilosophic, 
indeed, silly to think so. It is the plainest 
and most tangible inspiration. 

With equal truth and svibliniity, the 
Psalmist exclaims: '' O Lord my God, thou 
art very great ; thou art clothed with honor 
and majesty ; who coverest thyself with 
light as with a garment . w^ho stretchest out 
the heavens like a curtain : who maketh the 
clouds his chariot : who laid the foundations 
of the earth, that it should not be removed 
forever. Thou coverest it with the deep as 
with a garment. '^ 

The two great astronomic miracles of the 
Bible, were the going backward of the shad- 
ow on the sun-dial of Ahaz ten degrees, and 
the stopping of the sun and moon for a 
whole day at Joshua's bidding. 

A miracle is a violation of an established 
law of nature and can be produced evidently 
by the same power which made and still 
enforces nature's law^s. One of the best 
known, best established and most universal 
of nature's laws is that of gravitation. Can 
God for special reason suspend this law? 
He certainly can. He having been the law's 
framer. If the historic testimony is suffi- 
ciently truthful, we must believe that God 
did it. But as we have seen alread}^ the 
Bible is a trustworthy historic record. But 
is it reasonable or philosophic for an un- 



— 173 — 

changeable God to suspend an immutable 
law ? This is the chief question. The use 
of miracles cannot be denied to God in the 
moral government of the world. Man has 
a free will. He can do or not do, or do the 
contrary. The physical elements of nature 
have no free will, and are controlled by in- 
variably inexorable laws. God must govern 
the moral world differently from the phys- 
ical. Whenever the religious education or 
moral elevation of man in God's judgment 
requires a miracle, a suspension of a physical 
law, God cannot philosophically be denied 
the use of miracles. It cannot be reasonably 
denied that a power competent to select 
and enact lavv^s, can, if He pleases, suspend 
or alter them with this reservation, that the 
changes must be consistent with each other 
and with what remains. Reason teaches us 
that no power can accomplish an impossi- 
bility or what is a contradiction in itself, 
and God has given us our reason. 

With regard to Joshua's miracle of making 
the sun and moon stand still during the 
space of a day, God could accomplish it in 
many ways. He might for instance stop the 
rotation of the earth on its axis. This 
would have the effect of arresting the appar- 
ent motion of the sun and moon. There 
would be no need of interfering with the 
revolution of the heavenly bodies. A sudden 



— 174- 

stopping of the earth^s rotation would throw 
bodies on its surface into space with the ve- 
locity of the earth's rotation, according to 
the law of inertia or the first law of motion. 
However, the earth could be stopped slowly 
so that no shock would be perceptible. This 
could be accomplished in the space of a 
single minute. Besides the stopping of the 
earth's rotation, it would be necessary to 
sustain the equilibrium of the waters or to 
replace the effects of centrifugal force. 

That God wrought the miracle we know 
from revelation. Why he did so, or how, 
we do not know. 

Frequent attempts have been made to re- 
move the miraculous character of the event 
and to explain by natural causes the stand- 
ing still of the sun and moon at Joshua's 
command during the battle of Beth-Horon, 
by attributing the phenomenon to the effects 
of atmospheric refraction. The atmosphere 
certainly does refract the sun's rays passing 
through particularly near the horizon. It 
is a principle of optics, that light passing 
from a rare to a more dense medium is bent 
towards the perpendicular, so that the sun- 
beams receive a curvature in passing through 
the air, the sun appearing in the line of the 
tangent to the curve. 

The effects of refraction are, however, 
very slight, raising the sun vertically above 



— 175 - 

the horizon, a distance about equal to its 
own apparent diameter. It would be absurd 
to think that natural refraction could keep 
the sun and moon still for a whole day. By 
interposing a substance of very extraordi- 
nary refracting powers, God could accom- 
plish it, but this would be equally as mirac- 
ulous as either the stopping of the earth's 
rotation, or the motion of the machinery of 
the heavens. One miracle is as easy of ac- 
complishment to God as another. 

Now it may be said, that if ever there was 
an occasion demanding from God a miracle 
to save his own chosen nation, it was this 
same battle of Beth-Horon. In vain would 
God have freed his people from the yoke of 
Egypt, and led them safely for 40 years 
through the desert, and assisted them to 
take Jericho, if now they failed at Beth- 
Horon. After the fall of Jericho, the five 
kings or sheiks of South Palestine had 
banded together to destroy the invading Is- 
raelites. The Gibeonites having gone over 
to Joshua, the Canaanites lay siege to Gibeon 
with all their forces, and Joshua hastened 
to its defense. Had Joshua lost the battle, 
his forces would be driven back across the 
Jordan, and be probably exterminated. This 
was one of the most decisive battles in all 
the history of the Hebrew nation, and put 
its very existence in hazard. Can we won- 



— 176 — 

der that God interposed at the prayer of his 
servant to help his chosen people ? 

Joshua was at Gilgal when he received the 
message of distress from the Gibeonites, 
calling on him for immediate succor. Dur- 
ing the night, he marched the twelve miles 
between the cities, and just about dawn stood 
under the walls of Gibeon. The Amorites 
were surprised and fled before the forces of 
Joshua. The hero having pursued the 
enemy to the crest of the hill at Upper Beth- 
Horon, six miles from Gibeon, and witness- 
ing their precipitous flight down the road 
toward Lower Beth-Horon, began to fear 
that he would escape, and the victory would 
be an imperfect one. 

It was now about nine o'clock in the 
morning, and the sun stood over Gibeon to 
the south east of Joshua, while the moon 
being in the 3rd or 4th quarter, stood west 
of him and over the valley of Ajalon. With 
outstretched hands the hero of Israel and 
with supreme confidence in his father's 
God cries out : '^ Sun stand thou still upon 
Gibeon ; and thou. Moon, in the Valley of 
Ajalon. And the Lord hearkened to his 
voice, and the sun stood still, and the moon 
stayed until the people had avenged them- 
selves upon their enemies, and it hastened 
not to go down about a whole day." 

The retroversion of the shadow on the sun- 



dial of Ahaz is another of the astronomic 
miracles of the Bible. The atmosphere's 
property of refraction maintains the sun and 
other heavenly bodies sometime above the 
horizon, when they have actually set. With- 
out interfering but little with the laws of 
nature, God could have interposed a refrac- 
ing medium sufi&cient to (apparently) turn 
the sun's shadow backward through ten de- 
grees of an arc. This, however, would re- 
quire a miraculous intervention of God, but 
would be wrought out by the aid of natural 
laws and not through a violation of them. 

The laws of the physical universe are un- 
changeable because God has made them so. 
In the sight of God, the moral towers in- 
finitely above the material, and when Divine 
wisdom decides that he can add to the moral 
by the suspension of the laws of the material 
world, He certainly has reserved to himself 
the right to stay these laws. 

Astronomers that believe in the eternity 
of the mechanism of the world and of mat- 
ter, must be in constant alarm, for a chance 
accident to one of the myriad suns rolling 
in space, w^ould bring them all tumbling to- 
gether in chaos. Those that believe in God, 
have no dread of this kind, for they are not 
dependent upon chance for the safety of the 
world, and believe that God's goodness, 
power and wisdom regulate all things. 



— 178 — 

Many persons have also endeavored to 
explain the apparition of the Star of the 
Magi by a natural phenomenon, and thus 
rob it of its miraculous character. Kepler 
was the first to attempt this explanation in 
order to establish on a basis of certainty the 
exact date of our Lord's birth. He endeav- 
ored to identify a conjunction or near ap- 
proach of Jupiter and Saturn with the 
appearance of the star of the Wise men. 

Dr. Idler of Berlin, with not so disinter- 
ested and praiseworthy a motive as Kepler's, 
worked out with great care and really much 
plausibility this idea of Kepler's. Astron- 
omers, however, have recently computed 
very accurately an ephemeris of Jupiter and 
Saturn, for the year 7 B. C. 

There were three conjunctions of these 
planets in that year, and one of them oc- 
curred in December. At their nearest ap- 
proach, December 4th, 7 B. C, the planets 
were separated by a space equal to double 
the apparent diameter of the moon. Con- 
sequently the planets could not possibly 
have appeared as a single star. And even 
if this did look as a single very bright star, 
they could not be said to appear to move on 
before the wise men, and stand still over 
any particular stable in Bethlehem. The 
stars, planets and comets are too distant to 
appear to stop or stand over any particular 



— 179 — 

house or spot, as they will appear equally 
to be over every object in the neighborhood. 
Again, meteors are too ephemeral in their 
existence and too rapid in their flight to act 
'as guides. This apparition of the star of 
the wisemen could have been no natural 
phenomenon. 

These conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn 
recur after intervals of fifty-nine years. 
This conjunction could have no extraordi- 
nary character for the Eastern astronomers 
of that time, as they must have been ac- 
quainted with the matter, seeing that they 
were able to compute the times of the solar 
eclipses very accurately. 

The distinguished Knglish astronomer, 
Pritchard, says: ^^But even supposing that 
the Magi did undertake this journey at the 
time in question, it seems impossible that 
the conjunction of December B. C. 7 can pn 
any reasonable grounds be considered as 
fulfilling the conditions in St. Matthew. 
The circumstances are as follows : on or 
close to the 4th of December the sun set at 
Jerusalem about 5 P. M. Supposing the 
Magi to have then (or soon after) com- 
menced their journey to Bethlehem, the}^ 
would first see Jupiter and his dull compan- 
ion one and a half hour distant from the 
meridian in a S. E. direction, and decidedly 
to the east of Bethlehem, which village is 



— 180 — 

distant from Jerusalem by about a two hours^ 
journey in a southerly direction. By the 
time they came to Rachel's tomb, the planets 
would be due south of them, on the merid- 
ian, and no longer over the Hill of Beth- 
lehem, for as seen from Rachel's tomb that 
hill bears S. 13° E. The road then takes 
a turn to the east, and ascending the hill, 
terminates near to its western extremity. 
The planets would then be on their right 
hand and a little behind them as they en- 
tered the village; the ^^star," therefore, 
would cease altogether to go before them as 
a guide, and the case would be worse if 
they left the Jaffa gate at a later hour. 
Moreover, once on the hill, even if the star 
were not behind them as they proceeded 
along the village, it would be physically 
impossible for it to stand over any house 
whatever close to them, seeing that it would 
now be visible far away from the hill, on 
the side beyond it towards the west and the 
south, at an elevation of about 50"" or more. 
As they advanced, the star would of necessity 
recede towards the west, and under no cir- 
cumstances could be said even to appear to 
be over any house not distant by many miles 
from the place where they were. Thus the 
two heavenly bodies altogether fail to fulfill 
either of the conditions implied in the words 
^^ went before them'' {cooyff^v abrou^^ or '' stood 



— 181 — 

Over tlie house where the young child was'' 
(^iazddrj sTidvco^^ and the beautiful phantasm 
of Kepler and Ideler, which has fascinated 
so many minds, vanishes before the light of 
an astronomical examination.'' (Nature and 
Revelation, page 253.) 

The star of the Magi was no ordinary 
astronomic phenomenon, but must have 
been, as the Scripture intimates, a super- 
natural and divinely appointed messenger 
of the Most High. 



Chapter X. 

OPTICS OF THE BIBIvE. 

Optics is one of the best developed of the 
sciences, and as far as its physical conditions 
are concerned, has acquired a considerable 
degree of completeness. It is one of the 
few sciences in which an extensive and 
varied collection of phenomena, and their 
proximate causes, have been reduced to a 
few simple general laws. 

Optics is preeminently a modern science 
and largely owes its development to Young 
and Fresnel. 

The ancients did very little in the field 
of optics, and their acquaintance with it was 
confined to a knowledge of the law of re- 



— 182 — 

flection. The ancient pliilosopliers. with 
the exception of Aristotle, believed that ra5^s 
proceeded from the eye to the object, instead 
of from the object to the eye. 

The Arabian astronomer Alhazen appears 
to have been the first, in the nth century, 
to perceive that vision is produced by rays of 
light proceeding from the object to the eye, 

Ptolemy was acquainted with the fact that 
the rays of light passing through the at- 
mosphere were bent or refracted. 

During the middle ages no addition was 
made to this science. 

Jansen, Galileo and Kepler, by working 
and experimenting with lenses, made some 
slight advances in optics. 

From this time forward, the science began 
to advance slowly but steadily under the 
efforts of Snell, Descartes, DeDominis, 
Mariotte, Boyle, Barrow, Fermat and others. 

The gigantic efforts of Newton gave an 
imm.ense impulse to the study of this sci- 
ence. Newton's labors in the field of optics 
were herculean. Newton was the greatest 
advocate of the corpuscular or emission 
theory of light, although Descartes, the 
founder of modern mechanical philosophy, 
was its originator. 

Among the most obvious properties of 
light, discovered by observation, are its di- 
vergence equally in all directions from a 



— 183 — 

luminous center and its transmission in 
straight lines. 

Its velocity is a very rapid one indeed, 
and has been determined principally by the 
method of reflecting mirrors and the ob- 
servations of the eclipses of Jupiter^s satel- 
lites. 

Roemer, in 1675, made the first estima- 
tion of the velocity of light by means of 
observations on the eclipses of Jupiter's 
satellite. He found by this method a veloc- 
ity for light of 190,000 miles a second. 

Fizeau, in 1849, ^^^^ used reflecting mir- 
rors to compute the velocity of light. This 
method gives 185,000 miles a second as 
light's velocity, and these figures are now 
regarded by scientists generally as a very 
close approximation. 

Like that of gravitation, heat and sound, 
the intensity of light diminishes inversely 
as the square of the distance from the lumi- 
nous center. All surfaces reflect more or 
less light, even those through which it is 
most readily transmissible. 

When a ray of light falls upon any sur- 
face, the angle v/hich it makes with the 
perpendicular or normal to the surface at 
the point of incidence is called the angle 
of incidence ; and that which the reflected 
ray makes with the perpendicular, is called 
the angle of reflection. In the reflection of 



— 184 — 

liglit, the incident ray, the perpendicular to 
the surface at the point of incidence and 
the reflected ray, lie in the one same plane, 
and the angle of reflection is always equal 
to the angle of incidence. 

When a ray of homogeneous light is in- 
cident on a refracting surface, the angle 
which its direction makes with the perpen- 
dicular to the surface is called the angle of 
incidence, and the angle which the refracted 
ra}^ makes with the perpendicular is called 
the angle of refraction. The incident and 
refracted ray lie in the same plane as the 
perpendicular at the point of incidence, and 
upon opposite sides of it. 

Sneirs law of the sines is that the sine of 
the angle of incidence, whatever that angle 
may be, bears to the sine of the angle of re- 
fraction a constant ratio dependent only on 
the nature of the media between which the 
refraction takes place, and on the nature of 
the light. This constant ratio just men- 
tioned, is called the coef&cient or index of 
refraction, and will have a certain value, for 
instance, for refraction from vacuum into 
glass, another from glass into water; it will 
also have one value for red light and an- 
other for green, blue, yellow and so on. 
This coefiicient is greater than unity when 
refraction takes place from vacuum into a 
medium, and in general is greater than 



— 185 — 

unity when the refraction is from a rarer 
into a denser medium, and less than unity 
when the contrary happens. Thus, from 
air to water, the coefficient of refraction is 
f, from air to diamond f, from water to 
crown glass f , and from crown glass to dia- 
mond f ; while from crown glass to air it is 
I, and from water to air f , and so forth. 

The angle of incidence may vary from o^ 
up to 90°, and the angle of refraction cannot 
exceed 90°, because this is the w^hole space 
between any surface and a perpendicular to 
it. Hence, for light going toward the rarer 
medium, there will be a limit of the angle 
of incidence beyond which no angle of 
refraction can be found sufficiently large. 
Rays meeting the surface at an angle greater 
than this limit, cannot pass the surface. 
There is a mathematical impossibilit}^, and 
hence a physical ; and the light is wholly 
thrown back into the medium, or totally 
reflected. 

These are the best known and most gen- 
eral properties of light. There are many 
other properties of light, some of recent 
discovery, such as polarization, double re- 
fraction, aberration, chromatic aberration, 
diffraction, dispersion, interference, and so 
on, which need not be considered here. 

Two rival theories, purporting to account 
for the different phenomena of light, have 



— 186 — 

for a long time stood side by side. Each 
theory claimed great names among its sup- 
porters and very bitter partisans. The 
great Newton stood the father of the one, 
and Huygens that of the other. The theory 
of emission, or the corpuscular theory of 
Newton, claims that light consists of lumi- 
nous particles thrown off from the light 
source, and so minute as to be practically 
imponderable. These particles impinging 
on the organs of vision, produce the sensa- 
tion of light. In this theory the colors of 
light depend on the velocity of its trans- 
mission. It regards reflection as analogous 
to the rebounding of elastic bodies, while to 
explain refraction, it assumes that there are 
interstices in transparent bodies, to allow of 
the passage of the particles of light, and 
that these particles are attracted by the 
molecules of bodies, their attraction combin- 
ing with the velocity of the particles of light 
to cause them to deviate in their course. 

The particles of light in this hypothesis 
are capable, like elastic balls, of bounding 
from or being reflected b}^ surfaces ; and the 
production of colors is explained by assum- 
ing that a rotary motion is given to these 
particles under certain circumstances. 

The second or undulatory theory, pro- 
posed by Hooke and advocated by Huygens, 
supposes the existence of an imponderable 



— 187 — 

cosmic or luminiferous ether, reaching out 
into interstellar space and filling the inter- 
stices of bodies, all of which, however hard 
or seemingly impenetrable, are now known 
to be more or less porous. Vibrations in the 
substance of this ether, transverse or per- 
pendicular to the direction of the ray, are, 
according to Huygens and his disciples, the 
origin of light. 

The color of light in the undulatory the- 
ory depends on a wave-length or on the 
period of a Vv^ave. 

It was the explanation of the principle of 
interference, that formed the most decisive 
reason yet known for adopting the undula- 
tory in preference to the emission theory of 
light. 

Interference is the effect which rays of 
light, after being bent or diffracted, produce 
on each other. 

Fresnel in his elegant, lucid and most in- 
structive experiment on Interference, em- 
ployed two mirrors placed together at a 
very obtuse angle, a very little less than 
i8o°, and reflected from their surfaces upon 
a screen light from the focus of a lens, in 
such a manner that on reaching the screen, 
some of the undulations of two converging 
rays should correspond and intensify one 
another, while others should be separated by 
half a wave length and destroy one another. 



— 188 — 

If two luminous waves, according to the 
undulator}' theory, simultaneously impel a 
molecule of ether, its motion will be the re- 
sultant of the original impulses ; and if the 
two motions, as in the case of diffraction, be 
nearl}^ in the same direction, the resultant 
will be nearly their sum ; if opposite, their 
difference. Thus, when a particle has begun 
to vibrate from the action of a luminous 
wave, and if, while in motion, another wave 
imxpinge upon it, the result will be increase 
of light, if the motion of the second wave 
conspire with that of the first ; but a de- 
crease, if they oppose each other ; and total 
darkness, if, while opposing, they are equal 
in velocity. 

If the second wave impinge upon the 
molecule of ether, already vibrating under 
the impulse of a first wave, after it has ac- 
complished one or more vibrations and has 
returned to its original position, the two 
waves will evidently conspire together, and 
produce more violent motion ; but if it im- 
pinge on the molecule, when the latter has 
only accomplished half a vibration, then the 
wave will oppose the particle's return to its 
original position ; thus producing diminu-, 
tion of motion, or, if equal, rest. 

In the former case, the intensity of light 
is increased; in the latter, diminished; and 
if the undulations are of equal velocity, the 



^189 — 

light is doubled in the first case, and de- 
stroyed in the second. ^ 

The corpuscular hypothesis absolutely 
fails to explain interference. The brilliant 
experiments of Young and Fresnel on this 
subject of Interference have won a complete 
triumph for the undulatory theory. Its 
truth is now universally admitted by physi- 
cists. It has not only satisfactorily ac- 
counted for all the phenomena of light, but 
has been the means of discovering new 
phenomena, so that its soundness may be 
said to rest on evidence similar to that which 
we have for the theory of gravitation. 

Owing to the great name of Newton, the 
theory of emission seemed for a long time 
to be all but established. 

During the apparent triumph of the emis- 
sion theory an objection that appeared in- 
surmountable was raised by scientists of 
this school against the language of Moses 
in Genesis. In the first book of the Penta- 
teuch, God is represented as making light 
anterior to the sun. This could not be 
under the corpuscular theory, seeing that 
light would be produced by particles issuing 
from the sun. Consequently the sun should 
exist before we could have the sensation of 
light. During the sway or vogue of the 
emission theory, this statement of Moses 
was regarded by infidel scientists as so ab- 



— 190 — 

surd, that they declared that it would of 
itself prove Moses an impostor. But it is 
now known that it is in perfect accord with 
the undulatory theory and consequently 
with the most advanced ideas of modern 
optics. 

And so the old objection that formerly 
seemed so overwhelming, has served only 
to strengthen the truth and luster of the 
Mosaic account. This indeed should be a 
warning to scientists. They should not 
pass too rapid a judgment against a record 
that has stood the attacks of so many cen- 
turies. Thus has Scripture preceded the 
discoveries of the learned. 

In the Book of Genesis, Moses represents 
God as saying: " Be light made. And light 
was made. And God saw the light that it 
was good : and he divided the light from 
the darkness.'^ 

Col. Robert G. Ingersoll objects very ve- 
hemently to the correctness of this declara- 
tion of Moses that God divided the light 
from the darkness. It is one of his chief 
objections to the truth of the Pentateuch, 
and the Colonel refers to it on almost all 
occasions. 

In his lecture on the '' Mistakes of Moses,'' 
the Colonel, (page 3) says : '' The next thing 
he (Moses) proceeds to tell us, is that God 
divided the darkness from the light ; and 



— 191 — 

right here let me say when I speak about 
God, I simply mean the being described by 
the Jews. There may be in immensity 
some being beneath whose wing the uni- 
verse exists, whose every thought is a glit- 
tering star, but I know nothing about Him, 
not the slightest, and this afternoon I am 
simply talking about the being described by 
the Jewish people. When I say God, I 
mean Him. Moses describes God dividing 
the light from the darkness. I suppose 
that at that time they must have been 
mixed. You j^an readily see how light and 
darkness can get mixed. They must have 
been entities. The reason I think so, is 
because in that same book I find that dark- 
ness overspread Egypt so thick, that it could 
be felt, and they used to have on exhibition 
in Rome a bottle of the darkness that once 
overspread Egypt. The gentleman who 
wrote this, in imagination saw God dividing 
light from darkness. I am sure the man 
who wrote it, believed darkness to be an 
entity, a something, a tangible thing that 
can be mixed with light. '^ 

The eloquent and glittering Colonel is 
very fond of bombast. All his objections 
against religion are dummies arrayed in 
bombast and the raiment forms ninety-nine 
per cent of the whole. 

Darkness is a negative quality. It is not 



— 192 — 

an entity. It is merely the absence of 
light. Cold is also a negative quality. It 
is not an entity. Cold is simply the ab- 
sence of heat. We know that cold, never- 
theless, can be divided or separated from 
heat. It is done every day. Similarl}^ dark- 
ness can be divided or separated from light. 
It is done every day when we close our doors 
and wdndow blinds, and when the earth ro- 
tates on its axis, giving twelve hours of light 
on an average, and twelve hours of darkness. 
We all speak of separating light from dark- 
ness. Custom has made the mode of ex- 
pression universal and correct. 

In another way God divided the light 
from the darkness by gathering together 
and condensing into great centers the nebu- 
lous matter of space (according to the nebu- 
lar hypothesis) and creating great luminous 
suns, and leaving other parts of space in 
dense darkness. 

Speaking of the darkness of Egypt as 
being sensible to the touch is a very com- 
mon metaphor. In alluding to the bottle 
of darkness kept in Rome, the brilliant 
Colonel exposes his gullibility. A Fuegian 
free from prejudice would not believe that 
little ditty. 

In the wonderfully sublime book of Job, 
the Almighty is represented as asking the 
patriarch: ^^ Where is the way where light 



- 193 — 

dwelleth, and as for darkness, where is the 
place thereof, that thou shouldst take it to 
the bounds thereof, and that thou shouldst 
know the paths to the house thereof? Know- 
est thou it because thou wert then born, or 
because the number of thy daj^s is great? '^ 
Here are enquiries of the most astonishing 
character regarding the dwelling place of 
light and darkness, the bounds of each, and 
the path to the house of light. 

These questions are truly wonderful in 
the light of modern science. They are as 
unanswerable now as in the days of Job, 
when neither the corpuscular nor undula- 
tory theory was known. We can as little 
say now as persons in the time of Job could 
say where is the limit beyond which light 
has never passed, and, gazing into the dark 
abyss beyond, declare there darkness reigns. 

Bvery new increase of power of the tele- 
scope has revealed nevv^ stars buried deeper 
and deeper in the abysm of space. The 
leviathan of Lord Rosse discloses stars so 
far away from us, that it would require 
60,000 years for light traveling with its 
awful velocity to cross the fearful chasm. 

We know from analog}^ that greater in- 
struments would reveal greater depths of 
space, lighted with now unknown suns. 
You may look into points in space appear- 
ing all blank, deep and dark to the unaided 

13 



— 194 — 

vision, and turn then the telescope upon 
them and you see thousands of blazing orbs. 
We may use power after power of telescope 
and gaze into space, and behold black spot 
after black spot illumined without reaching 
a limit. We cannot then pierce the bound- 
ary of light. We cannot penetrate the do- 
main of darkness. 

Wonderfully just and truthful is the 
sublime language of Holy Job, and the light 
of modern science has particularl}^ flooded 
with meaning this astonishing passage. 



Chapter XI. 

RESULTS GF GEOLOGY. 

[Agencies of Structure.) 

Geology is one of the sciences said to be 
in conflict with the Pentateuch. Some con- 
tend that the order of creation as set forth 
in Genesis, is contradicted by the teachings 
of Geology ; that the fossils found in the 
earth's stony bosom favor the theory of evo- 
lution by indicating that man and the higher 
animals have all been transmuted by slow 
gradations from the Monon, an animal of 
one cell, the lowest form of life ; that deposits 
deep down below the earth's surface, con- 
taining skeletons and relics of cave-men and 



— 195 — 

lake-dwellers, show man^s antiquity to be 
vastly greater than that of Biblical chronol- 
ogy ; and that even the fossil itself of pre- 
historic man has been unearthed. 

What Geology teaches concerning the age 
of the world and the order of creation, will 
be first considered, and later under the 
headings of Biology, Anthropology, and the 
Antiquity of Man, the questions of evolution 
and man^s age. 

The crust of the earth is composed of a 
number of rocky layers or strata. These 
strata have been laid down or deposited suc- 
cessively at different periods of time. Each 
one of these rocky layers contains fossil re- 
mains of quite different and distinct species 
of animals and plants. Geologists are en- 
abled to tell by the character of the fossil 
remains found in the various strata, the 
order in which the animal and plant species 
appeared upon the globe. 

Hence the great importance of determin- 
ing as accurately as possible the precise 
succession of the rocky layers, and the fossil 
fauna and flora vv^hich they contain. 

It will be found that the order of the cre- 
ation of the animal and vegetable kingdoms 
voiced by Nature herself, far from being 
contradictory to, is really in essential har- 
mony with, the words of Genesis. 

That Geolog}^ demands a very high an- 



— 196 - 

tiquity for our world can be easily conceded. 
This will in no wise impugn the veracity 
of the Mosaic record. The days of Genesis, 
as previously mentioned, are regarded in 
different senses by different commentators 
of Scripture. The church has made no 
official declaration on the subject. 

It is true that some commentators claim 
that the days of creation must be under- 
stood as days of only twenty-four hours 
each, but other great commentators regard 
them as epochs, and others again as ordinary 
days, but interpret the expression ^\In the 
beginning'^ of Genesis as a vast period of 
indefinite length. 

One of the most peremptory claims of 
geologists is that of a vast age for the world. 
Let us examine the grounds upon which 
this claim rests, and see how worthy it is 
of our credence. 

The age of the earth is recorded on the 
stony leaves of its crust. Hence the great 
importance of examining carefully this crust 
and of studying the nature of the agencies 
that combined to form it. If we are con- 
vinced by the soundness of the reasons ad- 
duced by geologists, that the age of our 
globe is very great, we are at liberty to fol- 
low two legitimate interpretations of script- 
ure, admitting of a high antiquity for the 
world. 



— 197 — 

Geolog}^, as its name intimateSj is a dis- 
course concerning the earth, and in its 
usually accepted and limited sense is a his- 
tory of the conditions of our globe and its 
inhabitants in the past. Geology is the 
geography and natural history of the by- 
gone ages of our planet. 

The surface of the earth as it now appears 
has been shaped, generally, by slo\v and 
gradual processes. The self-same forces of 
formation are now in active operation under 
our eyes, and it is principally by studying 
crust structure now actively at work that we 
will be able to reason by analogy back to 
the means and methods of earlier similar 
formations. 

The first step of the practical geologist, 
then, is to study closely the causes and 
processes of crust structure now going on 
on every side. 

The principal agencies now at work in 
shaping the form of the earth^s crust are 
atmospheric, aqueous, organic, and igneous. 
By observing the operations of these agen- 
cies now, we may be able to understand the 
accumulated effects of their work through 
inconceivable ages in the past. 

Atmospheric Agenciks. — The chief ef- 
fect of the atmosphere on the earth's crust 
is the formation of soil. Soil is formed from 
rock. Soil is the result of the rotting down 



— 198 — 

of rocks under the slow action of the atmos- 
phere. The ingredients of the atmosphere 
in soil-making are oxygen, carbon dioxide, 
and water as moisture. 

The moisture of the air falls upon the 
rocks in great abundance as rain-water, con- 
taining in solution carbon dioxide and oxy- 
gen. Rain-water falling upon the surfaces 
of rocks and penetrating into their inter- 
stices, rots them and forms soils. 

Sometimes the soils remain resting on 
the rocks where they are formed ; are some- 
times removed to other places, as from hills 
to bottom-lands ; and again carried by cur- 
rents to great distances. 

The depth of the soil on the earth's surface 
is far from being uniform. In many places 
the soil is carried away by rain-falls and 
streams almost as rapidly as it is formed, 
and again some rocks rot more rapidly than 
others. On level plains the soil is very 
deep, as the process of rock-rotting has been 
going on uninterruptedly for untold ages. 
Again rocks are often filled with joints and 
fissures, and the water penetrates to great 
depths and consequently the process of soil- 
making reaches down to great distances 
below the surface. In general, however, it 
may be said that the process of soil-making 
is extremely slow. 

Some parts of all rocks are soluble in rain 



— 199 — 

water and some are not. The soluble parts 
are slowly dissolved under the action of the 
atmospheric water and the rock breaks down 
into soil. The above is the chemical effect of 
rain-water in forming soils, but in high lati- 
tudes and mountainous regions, atmospheric 
water disintegrates rocks mechanically. In 
wet seasons, rain-water penetrates into the 
fissures of rocks to great depths, and freez- 
ing, breaks asunder the massive blocks into 
fragments, and these again into smaller 
portions until all crumble into dust. 

Atmospheric water acts chemically upon 
the rocks, decomposing them and producing 
soil. But water acts mechanically upon the 
crust of the earth as a soil remover or sur- 
face leveler. The mechanical agency of 
water in soil-removal may be regarded under 
the heads of river, ocean and ice; and each 
of these agencies may be considered in the 
light of erosion, transportation and deposit. 

Atmospheric water is constantly falling 
on the earth's surface in the form of rain. 
A portion of this water sinks into the earth, 
decomposing rock and forming ^ soil, and 
then comes up again to the surface through 
the medium of springs. Another portion 
of this rain runs along the earth's uneven 
surface and down the slopes of hills, cutting 
furrows and forming rills. Rills unite and 



— 200 — 

form rivulets and streamlets, and these 
again uniting, form rivers. 

All running water carries away soil in 
more or less abundance according to its size 
and velocity. The rivers unload their freight 
of soil and fragments of rocks in lakes and 
seas. Thus all the lands of the earth are 
being constantly washed away and carried 
to the sea b}^ the action of rain and rivers. 
It is computed that all land-surfaces are 
thus being cut away by rain and river ero- 
sion at an average rate for the whole earth 
of one foot in 5,000 years. And as the mean 
height of land over the ocean for all the 
earth is 1200 feet, it would require 6,000,000 
years to perfectly level the globe. 

So much for erosion, now for the trans- 
portation by water. It is well known that 
all rivers carry along mud and earthy ma- 
terials in more or less abundance. The 
weight of the fragments of stone or earth 
movable by running water increases at the 
rate of the 6th power of the velocity of the 
current. Thus, if the velocity of a stream 
be increased ten times, its carrying force 
will be multiplied one million times. If, 
then, a current be carrying all it can, the 
least check to its velocity will cause deposit, 
and the least subsequent increase will en- 
able it to again take up deposited material. 

Sorting Power of Water. — If we throw 



— 201- 

a few handfuls of earth into a basin of water 
and allow it to settle for a time, and then 
gently pour off the water, it will be seen 
that the materials of the deposit are perfect- 
ly assorted. The coarse fragments will be 
found at the bottom, and the successive lay- 
ers will be found finer and finer as we ascend 
until only very fine mud is seen at the top. 

If the loose earth had been thrown into 
running water, a similar but really more 
perfect assortment would be seen. The 
very coarse material would be found high up 
the stream, and as we advanced downward, 
the deposits would be found to be finer and 
finer. Pebbles are found only in beds of 
rapid torrents, and fine mud in those of slow- 
1}^ moving streams. 

Stratification. — Owing to the sorting 
power of water, the bottoms and banks of 
lakes, rivers and seas are made up of layers 
of materials of different degrees of coarse- 
ness, or, in a word, are found to be stratified. 
After every rain-fall an amount of earthy 
matter is borne into the lake or sea, and is 
finally deposited in layers, the coarsest par- 
ticles on the bottom, and the finest on the 
top. The mud carried into rivers by riv- 
ulets and after rains is sorted also, but in 
a different way, the coarser particles being 
deposited higher up the stream and the 
finer lower down. 



— 202 — 

General Law. — " We may therefore state 
it as a general law that all deposits in water, 
whether still water, as lakes and seas, or 
running water, as rivers, are stratified, and, 
conversely, that all stratified materials, wher- 
ever we find them, whether near water or 
high up on the tops of mountains, and in 
whatsoever condition we find them, whether 
as sands and muds or as hard stone, if the 
stratification be a true stratification, i. e., 
the result of sorted material, has been de- 
posited in water. Upon this very simple 
law, nearly the whole of geological reasoning 
is based. '^ (Le Conte's Geolog}^, page 21.) 

Rivers ordinarily rise in mountainous 
regions and flow along in their lower course 
through flat plains. In flood seasons, the 
rivers overflow their banks and the area 
subject to the overflow is called the flood- 
plain. The flood-plains of some of the great 
rivers of the world are very extensive. The 
whole of Egypt is the flood-plain of the 
Nile. After every overflow the sedimen- 
tary deposit becomes higher and higher. 

The thickness of the Nile deposit is com- 
puted at forty feet in depth. Nine feet 
have been placed there within 3,000 years. 
The statue of Rameses II, is covered from 
its base to a height of 9 feet with the sedi- 
ment of the Nile. This is the oldest monu- 
ment of civilization in the world. This 



— 203 — 

then — 3,000 years — is the highest antiquity 
that can be possibly claimed by any monu- 
ment of civilized man. 

At the mouths of all great rivers vast 
quantities of mud are dumped into the sea. 
This dumping process going on for ages, 
gradually reclaims a portion of land from 
the empire of the ocean. The lands formed 
in this way at the mouths of rivers are called 
deltas. These deltas are often very exten- 
sive ; that at the mouth of the Nile contain- 
ing 10,000 square miles, and the common 
one of the Ganges and Brahmapootra 20,000 
square miles. 

In great rivers flowing long distances, 
the coarse material of their saturation is all 
dropped high up the stream and only the 
fine mud reaches the sea, and being slowly 
deposited, the stratification of deltas is al- 
most horizontal. When rivers empty into 
oceans having great tides, deltas are not 
formed, on the contrary, not only is the 
sediment of the rivers all borne out to sea, 
but also great portions of the beds and banks 
are carried seaward, causing estuaries. Del- 
tas are only found at the mouths of rivers 
emptying into tideless seas. 

Agency of the Ocean. — Another great 
factor in land erosion, although much less 
in its aggregate effect than rivers and rains, 



— 204 — 

are tlie waves and tides of old ocean beating 
against exposed sliores. 

The eastern coast of England is disappear- 
ing at tke rate of 3 to 5 feet yearly, many 
islands in the German Ocean have entirely 
vanished, Heligoland is nearly gone, and 
the coast of Norway is being eaten rapidl}^ 
away. It must be said, however, that the 
tides and waves of ocean add to the land in 
many places. In fact what is lost to one 
place, is carried to and deposited in another 
place. 

Land made by the ocean waves has char- 
acteristic marks to distinguish it. The ma- 
terial is usually round-grained sand, shingle 
or gravel; and the layers irregular and in- 
clined, are often impressed with rain-drops, 
animal tracks and ripple marks. Old shore- 
lines of past geological epochs are recognized 
by these marks, and are often found now in 
rocks far inland and high up on mountain 
sides. 

GivACiERS. — Glaciers have had quite a 
strong agency in sculpturing out the earth's 
surface. Glaciers are ice-rivers running 
slowly down the sides of snow-capped moun- 
tains into the valleys beneath and carrying 
along with them immense quantities of debris 
of every kind, great fragments of stone, loose 
earthy matter, vegetation and tree-trunks. 

Icebergs. — In high latitudes glaciers run 



— 205 — 

out into the sea, and portions are broken off 
b}^ the waves and borne away upon the ocean 
currents. These floating fragments are ice- 
bergs. They are loaded with debris of every 
kind, and reaching warmer latitudes, are 
melted, depositing their burdens upon the 
bottom of the sea. In this way they are a 
factor in shaping the earth's crust. 

Aqueous agencies are principally mechan- 
ical, but they are also partially chemical. 
Rocks are dissolved by water and the soluble 
material, soil, is brought to the surface by 
springs. 

All rain w^ater has carbonic acid gas (CO2) 
in solution. Water thus impregnated, en- 
tirely corrodes and dissolves limestone rock. 
Thus, in many countries whole strata of 
limestone have been eaten away, leaving vast 
caverns filled with limestone drippings in 
the form of pillars, pilasters, stalactites and 
stalagmites. Mineral springs carrying to 
the surface soluble mineral w^ater, deposit 
it. Immense deposits of this kind are found 
in many countries, covering miles in extent, 
and are hundreds of feet thick. In this way 
have been formed vast quarries of travertine 
and calcareous tufa, great veins of silica, 
sulphur and iron oxides ; and by the drying 
up of mineral lakes, immense beds of salt, 
alkalines and borax. 

Organic Agencies. — Organic agencies 



— 206 — 

have performed an important part in the 
formation of the earth's crust. In one way 
these agencies are the most important of all, 
as the fossils of animals and plants found 
embedded in the strata of the earth's crust 
have written the most delicate and truest 
history of our planet. 

Peat-bogs and peat-swamps are very ex- 
tensive in cool, moist climates. These bogs 
and swamps are the accumulations of disin- 
tegrated vegetables, rushes, shrubs and trees 
during vast ages. Their composition is 
chiefly carbon, as most of the gaseous ele- 
ments of the original plants have been lost, 
passing into the atmosphere. 

Peat is often found in the deltas of great 
rivers in layers, alternating with river-silt. 
The plants and trees were borne down in 
great floods and deposited in the delta and 
then covered up by the silt coming on later. 

This peaty substance, when covered deeply 
with mud and sand, and subject to great 
pressure, has in many places been converted 
into immense coal-seams and great beds of 
lignite. 

Corals. — A large area has been reclaimed 
from the sea and added to the land as coral 
reefs and islands. These reefs and islands 
are really immense accumulations of lime- 
stone, deposited by millions upon millions 



— 207 — 

of soft polyps, actiniae, sea-anemones or 
zoophytes. 

Coral is formed by the secretion of cal- 
careous matter or limestone from sea water 
by these little animals. The zoophyte has 
no organ of sense. They can multiply by 
buds and eggs. Thej/ are of the type of 
the radiates, have a cylindrical body with a 
mouth at one extremity surrounded by ten- 
tacles. 

Coral formation is of great interest to the 
geologists also, because it is an evidence of 
crust movements on a grand scale. 

The polyp takes sea water into its mouth 
by means of the tentacles, and digests lime 
carbonate. 

Reef-building corals will grow only under 
restricted conditions. They will not thrive 
in an ocean temperature of less than 68"^ 
Fahr. On the shores of Florida, the Baha- 
mas and the Bermudas they grow in a high 
latitude owing to the presence of the warm 
Gulf Stream. 

They will not grow in a depth of ocean 
beyond one hundred feet. They must have 
salt water, as they are killed by mud and by 
fresh water. They thrive best where ex- 
posed to the waves of old ocean. 

In the Pacific Ocean there are three kinds 
of coral reefs ; fringing, barrier and circular 
(atolls) reefs. About high volcanic islands 



— 208 — 

we find fringing reefs. Corals build around 
the islands, limited outward by depth and 
inward by the shore and upward by sea- 
level. The corals build a platform or fringe 
around the island. 

Around some of these volcanic islands 
there may be no reef, but at a distance of 
from five to fifteen miles is often found a 
rampart of corals going completely around 
the island and separated from it by a chan- 
nel many fathoms deep. There are many 
circular reefs or atolls in the Pacific. These 
reefs seem to have grown up from the great 
sea-bottom without the aid of an island. 
The reef encloses a lagoon of still water of 
an irregular circular form. There is neither 
volcanic island nor land of any kind in the 
interior. 

Whence came the barrier reefs and atolls? 
Darwin's theory is the one generally ac- 
cepted by geologists. He claims that the 
atolls and barrier reefs were at first fringing 
reefs. That the bed of the Pacific has been 
gradually sinking, carrying the volcanic 
islands with it, forming first barrier reefs, 
and later, atolls. If the ocean bed had sub- 
sided too rapidly, the corals would have 
been carried down below a depth of one 
hundred feet and drowned. The subsidence 
was just as fast as the coral ground grew 
upward, and thus the living corals kept 



— 200 — 

themselves above the hundred feet limit. 
In the mean time, however, the island was 
sinking with the ocean bed, and gradually 
separated from the fringe of corals, and grew 
smaller and smaller until it formed the bar- 
rier reef and finally disappeared and left 
the atoll. 

The amount of sea-bottom subsiding is 
computed at 12,000,000 square miles. The 
amount of (volcanic and coral islands) lost 
or carried down below^ the ocean surface, is 
estimated at many hundred thousand square 
miles. The amount of the actual subsidence 
is placed at 10,000 feet. The rate of sink- 
ing cannot exceed the rate of coral growth, 
or the corals would have been all drowned. 
The rate at which coral ground rises, is 
placed at one quarter to one half inch yearly. 
Thus, for a subsidence of 10,000 feet, it 
would require in the neighborhood of 500,000 
years. 

An ocean bed of many millions of miles 
in area has sunk down several thousand feet. 
This sinking has been going on for im- 
mense ages and is still going on. This vast 
downward movement demands an upward 
one to maintain an equilibrium of the earth's 
crust. The western portion of the Ameri- 
can Continent has been gradually elevated 
about 20,000 feet during the present and 
latter part of the Tertiary epoch. It is very 



— 210 — 

likely that the sinking of the Pacific ocean 
floor and the elevation of the American Con- 
tinent are connected together in preserving 
the crust equilibrium of our planet. 

Besides coral deposits there are also im- 
mense limestone deposits from Molluscous 
and Microscopic shells. 

The agencies thus far considered, are 
levelling ones, and tend to cut down the 
land and fill the ocean or make a universal 
ocean. 

There is, however, an other class of agen- 
cies called igneous, the tendency of which 
is to upheave or elevate the earth's surface 
unevenly. The actual shape of the earth's 
crust is the resultant of these forces of lev- 
eling and upheaving. 

There is a dispute between astronomers 
and geologists regarding the interior heat 
of the earth. Very many geologists claim 
that the earth's interior is a molten mass 
of fire. Astronomers claim that the mechan- 
ical principle of tides requires a rigidity in 
the earth equal to that of steel. 

All agree, however, that there are vast 
quantities of heat within the earth. This 
heat causes volcanoes, earthquakes and vi- 
brations of the earth's crust. 

Volcanoes. — Taking the whole globe, 
volcanoes are very numerous. Humboldt 
counted 225 as active during the past cen- 



— 211 — 

tury. Volcanoes most frequently are found 
in islands of the ocean, or on lands border- 
ing on the sea. The greatest groups are in 
Java, Iceland, the Hawaiian islands and on 
the shores of the Mediteranean. 

Taking the world over, the mass of mat- 
ter erupted by volcanic action is truly enor- 
mous. Immense quantities of steam issue 
forth in volcanic eruptions, and it is thought 
to be the chief agent of eruption. 

How the heat is generated or occasioned 
that causes the production of the steam and 
melted matter, is a source of much dispute. 

One of the safest opinions is that the heat 
is in a great measure generated by chemical 
action, water meeting and combining v/ith 
the metaloids ; and the friction of mechan- 
ical crushing caused by the enormous pres- 
sure of the crust. 

Earthquakes. — Earthquakes are agents 
in shaping the earth's crust. The earth- 
quake may be but a slight tremor or a most 
violent movement of the crust, destroying 
whole cities and throwing great massive 
bodies high in the air. For the w^hole earth 
they are quite frequent and may be said to 
average one in every hour for the year 
around. The movement may be straight up 
and down, from side to side, obliquely or 
twisting. The movement begins at a centre 
called the epicentrum, and thence spreads 



— 212 — 

in all directions just like waves when a stone 
is thrown into a pool of water. 

The cause of earthquakes is still more or 
less obscure. Some of them are caused by 
great volcanic explosions, but the mighty 
ones are associated to the settling down of 
the earth's crust. 

There are mighty forces operating in the 
earth's interior, elevating the earth's crust 
in places and depressing it in others, and 
crushing the different portions together 
where the crust gives way at weak points. 
These crushings often break the crust, form- 
ing great fissures and producing violent 
motions of the surface. 

These quakes frequently occur in the beds 
of oceans as indicated by the mighty tidal 
waves, 50 to 60 feet high, that often strike 
the shores and produce great destruction. 

It is now known that there are forces 
elevating and depressing the earth's crust, 
acting slowly and gradually, and perceptible 
through their effects only after the closest 
observation. These are the real forces that 
have caused all the great inequalities of the 
earth's surface. Whenever the crust yields 
suddenly under the resultant of these forces, 
we have the phenomena of earthquakes. 

But those slow but might}^ forces have 
been at work for vast epochs. Normally 



— 213 — 

tliese forces are so slow, that the crust yields 
gradually, and there is no sudden crash. 

During a vast period of time, there has 
been a gradual elevating of the South Ameri- 
can Continent out of the ocean. Old beach 
marks are now found as high as 1300 feet 
above the sea-level and extending easterly 
along the coast line for iioo miles, and 
westerly 2,000 miles. And dead corals stick- 
ing to the rocks 3,000 feet above water mark, 
have been found on the same coast. There 
are also the clearest evidences of up and 
dow^n movements along the Italian coasts of 
the Mediterranean. Cliffs on the coast, and 
the columns of the bridge of Caligula are 
bored, several feet above the present sea- 
level, with holes made by the lithodomi, a 
species of marine-boring shell, and the tem- 
ple of the Nymphs is now under water. 

Scandinavia has been for long ages rising 
bodily out of the sea, at the average rate of 
from 2 to 3 feet per century. Old beach 
marks as high as 600 feet above sea-level 
are evidences of this. 

Greenland is slowly but gradually sub- 
siding. This fact is recognized by the Es- 
quimaux, who never build near the sea-level. 

In river deltas and other places where vast 
loads of sediment have accumulated, there 
are evidences of subsidence, as if the crust 
was there weighed down with its mighty 



— 214 — 

load. And, as already stated, in the great 
bed of the Pacific over an area of 10,000,000 
square miles, there has been an average sub- 
sidence of 10,000 feet as shown by the testi- 
mony of coral formation. 

It would seem then that the principal 
inequalities of our planet^s surface have 
been caused by a slow cooling and unequal 
contracting of the crust. 

Though the effects of these two kinds of 
agencies, elevating and leveling, are almost 
insignificant at the present time, yet when 
continued through immense ages, their re- 
sult would be enormous and amply sufficient 
to account for the earth's present shape. 

We have thus far considered the combi- 
nation of forces, that, after continuous ages, 
molded the earth into its present form. The 
next step is to learn as accurately as possi- 
ble the present structure of our globe, and 
the length of time required for its formation. 



215 



Chapter XII. 

RKSUI.TS OF GKOI^OGY. 

{Present Structure.) 

The figure of the earth is generally regard- 
ed as an ellipsoid of revolution or an oblate 
spheroid, having an ellipticity of 2"8i.T8 ? the 
polar being 13 miles shorter than the equa- 
torial radius. Strictly speaking, however, 
the earth has no purely geometrical figure, 
the nearest approach to its exact form geo- 
metrically, being an ellipsoid of three un- 
equal axes. This general form is exactly 
that which a molten fluid mass of matter of 
the earth's size, and rotating on an axis 
with the earth's axial rapidity, would inevi- 
tably assume. This general form of the 
earth is taken at the sea-level, the continents 
rising on an average 1200 or 1300 feet above 
and the sea-bottoms sinking 15,000 or 16,000 
feet below this level. 

The space occupied by the oceans being 
three times as extensive as that by the land, 
if the earth's surface could be perfectly 
leveled off, water would cover the globe en- 
tirely around to a depth of about two miles. 

The mean density of the earth is 5.55 
times that of water ; the density of the crust 
being 2.5 times, and of the central parts 
probably 16 times that of water. 



— 216 — 

What is known as the crust of the earth, 
is estimated at about an average of 20 miles 
in thickness. Our knowledge of this thick- 
ness of crust has been collected from deep 
borings, canons, volcanic ejections and faults, 
or crust foldings followed by erosion. Our 
chief geological knowledge has come from 
this last source, as strata have been eaten 
away by erosion to depths of more than ten 
miles. 

Rocks. — In geology, the term *^rock'' 
signifies any substance, hard or soft, con- 
stituting a portion of the earth's crust. In 
geology, the distinction of stony hardness 
or plastic softness is of no value. Rocks are 
divided into the stratified and unstratified. 

Stratified rocks are of aqueous origin and 
have been generally formed by sedimentary 
consolidation. 

Unstratified rocks are those of igneous 
origin, are more or less fused, and of a crys- 
talline structure. 

Stratified Rocks. — In examining great 
beds of sandstone and limestone, the stones 
are found to lie in regular layers. In great 
plains or level regions, the layers are level 
or horizontal and in mountainous regions 
they are inclined and often vertical. 

In fact any great mass of stratified rock 
is found to be divided up by parallel planes 
into beds of different thickness. The thicker 



-217 — 

beds are called strata. The strata are di- 
vided by planes into thinner snbdivisions 
called layers, and these again into very thin 
divisions or lines of sorted materials called 
laminae. 

These beds are all the product of water- 
sorting, and the structure is called stratifi- 
cation. Nine-tenths of the land-surface of 
the earth is covered by stratified rocks and 
where stratification is wanting, it has been 
removed by erosion or covered by igneous 
rocks. 

The extreme thickness of stratification is 
from ten to twenty miles, and as stratifica- 
tion virtually extends over the whole earth, 
so there is no portion of it which has not 
been at some time covered by the sea. 

Stratified rocks are for the most part con- 
solidated sedimentary deposits. 

The laminae of sandstones and shales, 
when closely examined, show the water- 
sorting of materials. The fossils of the 
shells and skeletons of animals are found in 
the stratified rocks. Ripple-marks, rain- 
prints, foot-prints of animals are found in 
the stony matter of stratified rocks. In these 
stratified rocks, in fact, are found every 
mark, character and peculiarity w^hich have 
been observed in recent sedimentary de- 
posits. 

Stratified rocks, then, wherever found, in 



— 218 — 

the interior of continents or high up on 
mountain sides, are all sedimentary deposits 
in water. There is thus an everlasting 
cycle of processes going on. Rocks are dis- 
integrated and decomposed into soils, soils 
are removed and deposited as sediments, 
sediments are hardened into rocks, these 
rocks are raised up into surfaces by mighty 
forces and again rotted down into soils. 

Stratified rocks have been formed slowly 
and gradually, and sometimes indeed, with 
extreme slovvmess and by the regular and 
continual operation of causes similar to those 
now accumulating sediments. The laminae 
of some strata are as thin as fine paper, and 
each individual one represents more or less 
considerable lapse of time, such as the flood 
and low water of rivers or the ebb and flow 
of tides. 

Some limestone strata are composed en- 
tirely of the remains of successive gener- 
ations of microscopic shells, every inch 
thickness of w^hich represents a long period 
of time, and yet these deposits are often 
thousands of feet thick. Sandy or coarser 
materials are, however, more rapidly depos- 
ited than limestone, still as a rough rule, 
thickness is a measure of time. 

Owing to the manner in which stratified 
rocks have been formed, namely from sedi- 
mentary deposits in water, they must have 



— 219 — 

been originally horizontal at the bottom of 
water, and when we find them in other posi- 
tions and at other levels, we naturally con- 
clude that subsequent change has caused it. 

Strata, however, must not be likened to 
perfectly continuous and even sheets of 
paper, but rather to irregular cakes, thick 
in the middle and thinning out towards the 
margins. Strata continuall}^ interlap v/ith 
other strata. Sandstones and other coarse 
deposits are less continuous and extensive 
than clays and other finer materials. 

At first the strata were all horizontal and 
at the bottoms of rivers, lakes or seas ; now, 
however, w^e find them in the interior of 
continents and far above the sea-level, some- 
times still horizontal, but generally more or 
less inclined ; sometimes, indeed, in moun- 
tain regions, folded, crushed, broken and 
contorted in every possible manner. Com- 
monly, large portions of the upper parts of 
the strata that have been crushed and dis- 
located, have been carried away by erosion, 
leaving the edges exposed. The exposed 
edges of the strata are called the outcrop. 

It has been already stated that land-sur- 
faces are sinking beneath the ocean, and 
ocean-beds are rising up to become land- 
surfaces. This process has been going on 
throughout all geological times. It has 
also been seen that the rocky strata of land- 



— 220 — 

surfaces are often crnmpled and tilted and 
so eroded that tlieir edges are exposed. If 
at any time an eroded land-surface should 
sink beneath the sea, and should sediments 
be deposited upon the eroded edges and fill 
the erosion-hollows of a strata, and the whole 
be again by some agency raised above the 
sea, we would have what is known as uncon- 
formity in the resulting formation. Com- 
monly, but not necessarily, there would be 
a want of parallelism between the two series 
of the strata. 

A series of strata are said to be conform- 
able, when they are parallel and appear to 
be formed continuously under similar con- 
ditions. Two series of strata are uncon- 
formable when they are discontinuous and 
separated by an old land-surface or erosion 
surface, and consequently formed at different 
times and under different conditions. 

The history of the earth's surface is read 
in its stratifications. A group of conform- 
able strata ordinarily form a geological 
formation, and a line of unconformit}^ usu- 
ally divides two different geological forma- 
tions. While a place is land-surface, and is 
being eroded, there can be no strata formed 
there at that time, and it is clear that a line 
of unconformity indicates a period of which 
there is no record at that place, although 
the record may be found in some other place. 



— 221 — 

Unconformity then represents a gap in the 
geological record of strata. 

In classifying stratified rocks, geologists 
have endeavored with the greatest care to 
arrange the strata, from the highest to the 
lowest, in the order in which they were 
formed. From the very nature and manner 
of sedimentary deposits, it is clear that, 
unless they have been greatly disturbed, 
their relative position indicates their relative 
age, the uppermost strata or line of sediment 
being invariably the youngest. It is, then, 
an easy problem for the geologist to make 
out the relative ages of the different strata, 
composing a natural section of an exposed 
sea-cliff or railroad cut, either horizontal or 
regularly inclined. 

But when the rocks by some agency have 
been crumpled, folded, broken, pushed be- 
yond the vertical, and a part worn away by 
erosion, to show their real relations, under 
such circumstances is a most dif&cult affair. 

Another element to enhance the dif&culty 
of the problem, is that all the strata are not 
represented in any one place, but ordinarily 
only a small fraction. 

In endeavoring to arrange all the strata 
of the earth's surface according to the age 
of deposition, the geologist has then no easy 
task, as he finds in different places only 
small fragments of the whole. 



— 222 — 

The order of superposition must, when it 
can be applied, take precedence of all other 
methods, still this method is greatly aided 
by a careful comparison of the rocks in 
different places with each other. There are 
two methods of comparison, by the character 
of the rock and the character of the fossils. 
The method of comparison by rock-character 
is only of value in contiguous places. In 
widely separated places, it is of no value, as 
sandstone, clay, limestone and chalk of the 
same grain, color and composition have 
been found in all epochs. 

We cannot conclude that rocks are of the 
same age, because they are similar in ap- 
pearance. The most valuable and safest 
method of determining the age of rocks, is 
by comparison of the fossils. If these are 
similar in species, it is generally concluded, 
making proper allowances, that the rocks in 
which they are found belong to the same 

Geologists all over the world, working in 
harmony, have succeeded in making a fairly 
complete chronology of the strata of the 
earth^s crust. Breaks in one place, are filled 
by strata in another. The more perfectly 
the earth's surface is studied, the completer 
will this chronology become. And hence, 
new discoveries will bring new improve- 
ments. 



— 223 — 

The following is a generalized schedule 
of the divisions of the rocky strata of our 
planet's crust: Laurentian, Huronian, Pri- 
mordial, Canadian, Trenton, Niagara, Salina, 
Helderberg, Oriskany, Corniferous, Hamil- 
ton, Chemung, Catskill, Subcarboniferous, 
Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic, 
Cretaceous, Tertiary, Quaternay, Human. 

Igneous Rocks. — Igneous rocks are de- 
rived by cooling and crystallization from 
fused material. All that is necessary to say 
about them here, is that they have neither 
stratification nor fossils. 

An intermediate series of rocks between 
the stratified and igneous, are the Metamor- 
phic, but as they are devoid of fossils, they 
too may be passed over without considera- 
tion here. 

Sedimentation is the aggregate sum of 
sedimentary deposits and denudation, its 
correlative term, that of erosion. Rain and 
rivers are the chief agents of erosion. Waves 
and tides produce about the one-fifth of the 
erosive effect of rain and rivers. Snow and 
glaciers are erosive agents, but they are 
classed with rain and rivers. 

In order to compute roughly the time 

required to give the earth's surface its pres- 

*ent shape, it will be necessary to compute 

the whole amount of denudation, that has 



— 224 — 

taken place in geological time, and the rate 
of rain and river erosion. 

The amount of denudation is determined 
b}^ geologists in a variety of ways. One 
method is from the examination of faults. 
Fissures are great fractures of the earth's 
strata by crust-movements. As has been 
already noticed, portions of the earth's crust 
are frequently subjected -to powerful hori- 
zontal pressure, by which it is mashed to- 
gether. These bendings of the crust produce 
enormous fractures or fissures. 

The walls of the great fissures nearly 
always slip one on the other, up or down. 
Such a displacement of the crust on the two 
sides of a fissure, is called a fault. All the 
surface indications of the slip, are often en- 
tirely obliterated by the work of erosion. 
In some faults the result of erosion is very 
great. 

Another, and a still better way of measur- 
ing erosion, is by the restoration of folded 
strata. 

The amount of general erosion is also 
measured by the amount of its correlative, 
sedimentation. The stratified rocks of the 
earth are the debris of general erosions. 
The average thickness of strata of the 
earth's surface cannot certainly be less than 
2,000 feet, and as the ocean area is three 
times that of the land, this would necessi- 



— 225 — 

tate at least 6,000 feet erosion of all land 
surfaces. General erosion has then, at the 
least computation, removed 6,000 feet over all 
land surfaces. But the rate of rain and river 
erosion is on an average one foot in 5,000 
years. It would thus require 30,000,000 
3^ears to accomplish the work of erosion, 
that we actually find to have been done. 

What the geologist asks for is time in 
bringing the earth to its present shape. 
But this can be granted without falsifying 
the Bible record. 

There are two interpretations of Genesis 
that admit the claims of Geologists, of a 
great age for the earth. One is by giving 
to the v/ords : ^^In the beginning'' (God 
created the heavens and the earth) an in- 
definite length of time. 

Matter was all created in this Beginning 
before the first Mosaic day, and afterwards 
fashioned into its different shapes. 

Some of the greatest commentators of the 
Bible are in favor of this interpretation of 
an interval of indefinite duration between 
the creation of the world and the first Mosa= 
ic day, as for instance, St. Basil, St. Chry- 
sostom, St. Ambrose, Peter Lombard, Hugh 
of St. Victor, St. Thomas and Perrerius. 

Another interpretation making the Mosaic 
days vast periods of time, w^ould be in most 
perfect accord v/ith the claims of geology. 

15 



-226 — 

Some very great commentators favor this 
interpretation. St. Augustine, Molina, Pa- 
tavius, Venerable Bede, St. Eucherius and 
St. Hildegarde contend that the days in 
Genesis must not be regarded as ordinary 
days, but are used for the word time. 

Geology is therefore in accord with two 
legitimate Biblical interpretations, in regard 
to the question of time. 



Chapter XIII. 

RESULTS OF GEOLOCxY. (Con.) 

(Fossih.) 

There is nothing in the whole record of 
Moses so determinedly combatted by a cer- 
tain class of scientists, as his order of crea- 
tion. These scientists use as their chief 
weapon, the testimony of fossils. It is thus 
of vital importance to explain as thoroughly 
as possible the character of fossils, and de- 
termine the reliability of their testimony. 

Fossil, a derivative of the Latin, fossilis^ 
and this irom. fodere^ to dig^ signifies a sub- 
stance dug from the earth, giving any evi- 
dence of the former existence of a living 
thing. Fossils reveal the nature of the 
former inhabitants of our planet. 

Stratified rocks are the consolidated sedi- 



— 227 — 

ments of former rivers, lakes and seas. 
In past ages as at present, the mud at the 
bottoms of seas and rivers contained shells, 
branches and leaves of trees, and remains of 
animals carried down by currents and buried 
there. These remains have in different 
ways been preserved to the present time, 
and are now fossils. 

Fossils are an invariable characteristic of 
stratified rocks. In rare instances, fossils 
are the very organic matter of the soft parts 
of animals, wonderfully preserved. In the 
frozen soil of Siberia, the bodies of extinct 
rhinoceroses and elephants have been ex- 
humed by currents, so perfectly preserved, 
that wolves fed on the flesh. 

In peat-bogs, too, which are great anti- 
septics, are found v/ell preserved skeletons 
of extinct animals, the organic substance of 
the bones being still retained. In other 
cases, in peat-bogs, the flesh is preserved, 
but has been changed into the fatty sub- 
stance known as adipocere. 

As a rule, however, only the form and 
structure of the shells and skeletons of ani- 
mals are preserved, and sometimes the form 
alone has survived. 

The organic structure is frequently pre- 
served by the process of petrifaction. Pet- 
rified wood is the best illustration of this 
process. Drift-wood is found completely 



— 228 — 

changed into stone in many strata, and par- 
ticularly in lava beds. In these instances, 
not only is the general structure of the 
bark, wood and pith retained, but the minut- 
est tissues and markings are most perfectly 
preserved in the stony matter that has 
replaced the wood. In petrifaction, the 
substance of the wood is replaced by stony 
matter, the wood, however, is not turned to 
stone. The best and most common petrifiers 
are carbonate of lime and silica. As the 
particles of the woody substance pass away 
by decay, particles of the mineral solution 
are deposited in their place, thus reproducing 
perfectly in stone the woody structure. 

Similarly to wood, the structure of bones, 
corals and shells is preserved, although the 
original matter has entirely disappeared. 

Often the structure is lost, and only a cast 
or mold of the external form is preserved in 
stone. This is found to have been preserved 
in different ways. Thus, in the case of 
shells, the living or recently dead shell was 
buried in mud, and subsequently the organ- 
ism was completely dissolved and removed, 
leaving only the hollow case or mold where 
it lay. 

In other instances the mold has been 
afterwards filled and a cast made by the 
deposit of mineral solution. Again the 
dead, empty shell was buried in, and filled 



— 229 — 

with mud, and subsequent!}^ tlie shell was 
removed by solution, leaving an empty space 
equal to the thickness of the shell. Now 
this hollow space corresponding to the 
thickness of the shell, was afterward filled 
by the deposit of soluble stony matter. 

Sometimes, even, w^e find only the mold 
of a small portion of the organism, such as 
the impressions of leaves and the foot-prints 
of animals left on soft mud, which afterward 
hardened. 

All fossil traces are of value because they 
are very characteristic parts of plants and 
animals. 

The species of the fossils we may find in 
the rocky strata, will depend on the country 
and on the kind and age of the rock, 

A few words here, by way of prelude to 
fossil history, about hov/ species of plants 
and animals now living on the earth, are 
distributed and the laws governing the dis- 
tribution of living species. 

A tourist visiting different countries read= 
ily recognizes the great difference in the na- 
tive plants and animals. He easilj^ perceives 
that the species of the various countries are 
almost always entirety different. As a gen- 
eral fact it may be said that each country 
has its own native species, differing more or 
less markedly from those of other countries. 

The whole group of plants inhabiting 



— 230 — 

one place or country is called its flora, and 
of animals, its fauna. In regard to fauna 
and flora, nature has set up her natural 
boundaries or limitations. The chief nat- 
ural boundaries are geographical and cli- 
matic. 

A natural fauna or flora is a natural group 
of animals or plants in one place, differing 
from other groups in other places and sep- 
arated from them by natural boundaries of 
a climatic or geographical character. 

Temperature is the most important of 
the climatic conditions, limiting fauna and 
flora. Plants being fixed to the soil are 
more strictly limited in regard to the dis- 
tribution of species than animals. 

Elevation above the earth's surface and 
latitude are the chief causes of the change 
of temperature conditions. If, in the first 
place, we take the case of plants and select 
a high mountain near the seashore in a 
tropical region we will find there all con- 
ditions of temperature. Beginning at the 
base of the mountain and ascending we find 
a region of palms ; of hard-wood ; of pines ; 
a treeless region; and a plantless region. 
Similarly in regard to latitude, in going 
from the equator to the poles, we find a 
region of palms in the tropics ; a region of 
hard-wood in the temperate zones ; a region 
of pines in the arctics ; a circumpolar tree- 



— 231 — 

less region of shrubs and herbs ; and a 
plantless region near the icy poles. 

The spread or extension of species is 
limited by natural boundaries or barriers. 
All organic forms will spread in all direc- 
tions, as far as physical conditions and the 
struggle for life will allow. The range of 
a species is the area over which it has 
spread. The hardiera species is, the greater 
may be its range, but the range of a species 
is more limited than that of its genus, and 
the range of a family, greater than that of 
its genera, and of an order than a famil}^ 

The several temperature regions graduate 
into each other insensibly. Species reach 
their highest development in vigor and 
number about the middle of their range, 
gradually falling away on the borders. 
They come in and go out gradually, the 
ranges overlapping on their borders. '' But 
in specific character there is no such gradu- 
al passage of one species into another, no 
evidence of transmutation of one species 
into another, nor of derivation of one species 
from another. From this point of view, 
species seem to come in at once in full 
perfection, remain substantially unchanged 
throughout their ranges, and pass out at 
once on the other border, other species 
taking their place as if by substitution, 
not transmutation. It is as if each species 



— 232 — 

originated, no matter liow, somewhere in 
the region where we find them, and then 
spread in all directions as far as physical 
conditions and struggle with other species 
would allow." (Le Conte, page no.) 

Certainly the study of species as we now 
find them, could not prove the theory of 
their origin by derivation or transmutation. 
Where no barriers exist, temperature re- 
gions shade into each other. Species will 
be found distinct and without any overlap- 
ping of each other where there are great 
natural barriers, such as mountain chains, 
seas and deserts. 

It is also found that although on lofty 
mountains in the tropics, the same range 
of temperature exists as in high latitudes, 
still the species are always entirely different 
because the torrid zone acts as an impassable 
barrier and prevents migration. Thus spe- 
cies invariably originate each in its own 
place and has been prevented from over- 
lapping or mingling by the presence of 
impassable barriers. 

Animal species, like plants, exist in tem- 
perature zones, but cannot be so simpl};^ 
arranged as that great classes correspond 
to great zones. Zonal arrangements of 
families cannot be as easily made with ani- 
mals as plants ; but if we confine ourselves 
to species or genera in general, animals are 



— 233 — 

subject to the same laws of distribution as 
plants. Thus : All animal species are lim- 
ited in range ; the range of species is less 
extensive than that of genera, and of gen- 
era than of families, and of families than 
orders ; Contiguous ranges graduate into 
each other by overlapping on the borders; 
Each species reaches its greatest vigor and 
abundance in the middle region and dies out 
on the borders. In specific character they 
remain essentially the same throughout their 
range and do not transmute or change into 
other species on the borders. Physical con- 
ditions may limit their range, but do not 
change them into other species, though vari- 
eties may be formed in this way. With 
animals as with plants, species originate in 
the places we find them and spread in all 
directions as far as physical conditions and 
the struggle with other species will allow. 

The faunas and floras of the different con- 
tinents of the globe are substantially diff*er- 
ent, owing to the existence of the great 
ocean barriers interposed between them. If 
there were no such impassable barriers, the 
faunas and floras of the earth would be ar- 
ranged in temperature zones from the equa- 
tor to the poles, containing the same species 
all around. 

The various species seem to have origi- 
nated on the continents where they are 



— 234 — 

found and have been prevented by impassable 
barriers from overlapping or intermingling. 

There are a few exceptions to this. Har- 
dy species that migrate widely, sometimes 
pass over from continent to continent ; in- 
troduced species that have grown wild ; and 
Alpine species. 

The whole earth has been inhabited at 
different times by entirely different species. 
All the animals and plants inhabiting the 
earth at one time, are called the fauna and 
flora of that geological time. We have thus 
a fauna and flora of the Devonian, Jurassic 
and Tertiary times. 

It is found as a general principle that the 
change from one geological fauna to another 
is gradual when the strata are conformable, 
but on the contrary that a line of uncon- 
formity usually abruptly separates two 
faunas. 

A series of conformable strata, in which 
the fossil species are either the same or 
change very gradually, are called a forma- 
tion, and the time during which such a 
formation has been laid down is known as 
a geological period. 

Unconformity of the strata and trenchant 
change in the species are the great tests 
determining the limits of a geological forma- 
tion and a geological period. The latter 



— 235 — 

test is regarded b}^ geologists as the more 
valuable. 

It is considered by geologists as an estab- 
lished fact that in the successive changes 
of geological species as manifested by their 
fossils from the earliest times dov/n to the 
present there is a steady approach ta living 
forms both in families, genera and species 
in the order named. 

Not until the Tertiary period do species 
begin to be identical with the living species, 
and thence onward we have an increasing 
percentage, identical with the living. 

Rocks, all the world over, are known to 
belong to the same time by the general sim- 
ilarity of their fossil species. There is 
found but little difficulty in applying this 
rule up to the Tertiary period, when the 
geographical diversity begins to be so great 
as to materially interfere with the general 
similarity. 

But beginning with the Tertiary another 
principle is put in use, the percentage of the 
fossil species still living in the immediate 
vicinity. The same age is indicated by 
similar percentage, less age by greater per- 
centage and greater age by less percentage.^ 

The geologist endeavors to form as perfect 
a chronology as he possibly can of the order 
of formation of the earth's crust by classi- 
fying the strata or arranging them from 



— 236 — 

lowest to highest, in the order in which 
they were formed or laid down ; and then to 
separate them into groups and sub-groups 
for convenient treatment. 

From the manner in which sediments are 
formed it is very evident, that, if they have 
not been greatly disturbed, their relative 
ages are indicated by their relative position ; 
the uppermost being always the youngest. 
It is, then, an easy matter to make out the 
relative ages of a natural section of strata 
where we find them regularly inclined or 
horizontal and undisturbed. 

But when the rocks are discovered to be 
folded, crumpled, broken, slipped and par- 
tially eaten away by erosion, to make an ideal 
section showing their real relation to one 
another in the matter of age is a difficult 
problem ; and the difficulty is enhanced by 
the fact that all the strata are not repre- 
sented in one place. Only a fraction, and 
indeed, a small fraction of the whole is usu- 
ally found in one place. 

The order of superposition takes preced- 
ence of all other methods in determining 
the ages of the rocks where it can be applied, 
^still it is w^ell to supplement it by a careful 
comparison of the rocks in different local- 
ities with each other. There are two means 
of comparison, by the character of the rock 
and the character of the fossils. The method 



— 237 — 

of comparison by rock-character is not of 
much assistance except in contiguous local- 
ities. Sandstones, clays, limestones, coal 
and even chalk belong to nearly all times, 
and are forming now. 

Groups of similar rocks and in contiguous 
localities are probably of the same age. But 
for rocks of similar grain, composition and 
color, in different continents, we can not use 
this method. 

But the most valuable and general means 
of determining the age of rocks in all parts 
of the world is by the comparison of their 
fossils. Whenever we find a general simi- 
larity of species, we conclude that the rocks 
belong to the same age. Allowances must, 
however, be made for difference of conditions 
of deposit, whether shore, deep-sea, fresh- 
water or marine deposit. 

Geographical diversity must be also con- 
sidered. In the fossils of rocks in different 
continents, absolute identity should not be 
sought, but only general similarity. 

The nature of the fossils, then, determine 
the age of the rocks. Fossils of different 
species are found in rocks of different ages. 
As a universal and fixed rule, when we know 
the fossil species, we know the ages of the 
rocks. 

The testimony of the fossils has been 
regarded as the strongest weapon in the 



— 238 — 

arsenal of the evolutionists to prove tlieir 
pet theory. However, when truly and im- 
partially given, the evidence of fossils is 
really strongly against the transmutation of 
one species into another ; is in fact an ab- 
solute contradiction of it and demonstrates 
a separate creation. This will be seen better 
under the headings of Biology and Anthro- 
pology. Still the proper place for a descrip- 
tion of fossils is here under the head of 
Geology. 



Chapter XIV. 

RESULTS OF GEOLOGY. (Con.) 
[Testimony of the Fossils.) 

The fossil history of the earth is divided 
into seven ages, each characterized by the 
dominance of some particular class of ani- 
mals or plants. Each fossil age corresponds 
to a separate system of rocks. We have, 
for instance, an age of Acrogen plants, an 
age of reptiles, an age of mammals, in which 
Acrogens, reptiles and mammals are the 
dominant types. 

In geology it is found that each dominant 
class culminates and declines, it does not 
entirely perish, but only becomes subordi- 
nated to the incoming and higher dominant 
class. 



— 239 — 

The following are the fossil ages and cor- 
responding rock systems : Archaean " age, 
corresponding to the Eozoic (dawn of animal 
life) rocks (Laurentian and Hnronian) ; Age 
of Mollusks, or age of Invertebrates, corre- 
sponding to the Silnrian rocks ; the Age of 
Fishes, corresponding to the Devonian ; the 
Age of Acrogen Plants, corresponding to 
the Carboniferons ; the Age of Reptiles, 
corresponding to the secondary rocks ; the 
Age of Mammals, corresponding to the Ter- 
tiary and Quaternary rocks ; and the Age of 
Man, corresponding to the present sediment- 
ary deposits. 

The Archaean (ancient, beginning) system 
of rocks is the most distinct of all the others, 
there being absolntely everywhere an un- 
conformity between them and every other 
system. They are the oldest known rocks. 
They are, however, stratified rocks and con- 
sequently the hardened sediments of other 
and more primitive rocks of which the 
geologist absolutely knows nothing. 

These Archaean rocks are always strik- 
ingly metamorphic and highly crumpled. 
These rocks are very extensive and contain 
the greatest beds of iron-ore of anj^ strata 
on the globe. They are of an immense 
thickness and likely are equal in depth to 
all the subsequent strata together. 

Some geologists think that they have 



— 240 - 

found evidences of at least the dawn of life 
in the time of the Archaeans. They claim 
that the vast deposits of iron-ore found in 
these rocks, as also the presence of graphite 
and limestone, give some indications of the 
previous existence of life. They say that 
the existence of the lowest forms of vege- 
table life in these strata is almost certain, 
and of the lowest forms of animial life (Pro- 
toza) probable. However, the best geological 
authority maintains that no life flourished 
in the time of these rocks, and applies the 
name Azoic (no animal life) or simply Arch- 
^an, to designate the strata. 

Between the Archaean and Silurian rocks, 
also called the Paleozoic (old life), the great- 
est and most universal break of the whole 
series of the globe's stratifications occurs. 
These two series of rocks are nowhere 
continuous ; they are everywhere completely 
unconformable. 

The period between the Arch^an and 
Palaeozoic rocks is regarded by geologists as 
a lost interval of time. In Archaean times 
there were certainly no fauna or flora. The 
Paleozoic is regarded as the most distinct 
era in the earth's histor}^ in regard to life 
on its surface. With the Palaeozoic era 
begins a distinct and well defined fauna and 
flora. 

The Palaeozoic rocks are much less thick, 



— 241 — 

crumpled and metamorphic than the Arch- 
aean. 

The Palaeozoic rocks are divided into the 
Silurian, the age of Mollusks ; the Devonian, 
the age of Fishes; and the Carboniferous, 
the age of Acrogen plants. 

The Silurian rocks derive their name 
from Silures, the Roman name for the 
ancient Welsh of these rocks, as they were 
first studied in Wales. The Silurians com- 
pose the Primordial, Canada, Trenton, Ni- 
agara, Salina, Helderberg and Oriskany. 

The only plants found in these rocks are 
sea-weeds. The animals are the lowest in 
the scale of life. For instance, of the Echin- 
oderms, only the most imperfect forms are 
found, the Crinoids. Of the Mollusks we 
find the Brachiopoda. Of the Articulata we 
find Trilobites, the lowest forms of the 
Crustaceans. These Trilobites show an ex- 
traordinary want of development and com- 
pleteness. 

In the Palaeozoic era reigned Fishes and 
Acrogen Plants. Fishes existed in great 
abundance. In the earl\^ portion of the 
Palaeozoic era, the sea is supposed to have 
covered the whole surface of the globe. 
The fishes of this era, however, were not at 
all like the common fishes of the present 
time. 

There were no high mountains nor deep 

16 



— 242 — 

depressions, and consequently no mighty 
barriers to the mingling of the fishes of the 
universal ocean. The animals of that early 
era without exception were all aquatic, and 
they were singularly alike all the world 
over. These Palaeozoic fishes reached their 
greatest development in the Devonian sys- 
tem of rocks. 

The Carboniferous age is noted for the 
extraordinary abundance and luxuriance of 
its vegetables and plants. It is the age of 
the Acrogens. 

This age is subdivided into the Sub- 
Carboniferous ; Carboniferous ; and Permian 
periods. The Carboniferous age is itself 
but one of the three ages of the Palaeozoic 
era. The Palaeozoic is but one of the five 
great eras including the present. The great 
eras are the Eozoic (dawn of animal life) ; 
Palaeozoic (old life) ; Mesozoic (middle life) ; 
Cenozoic (recent life) ; and Psychozoic (ra- 
tional life). 

The Carboniferous period is not more 
than one-twentieth to one-thirtieth of the 
earth's geological history, and yet during 
its continuance were preserved nine-tenths 
of all the coal of the globe. Coal is the 
fossil remains of decayed plants and vege- 
tables. The earth must have absolutely 
teemed with plants and vegetables during 



— 243 — 

this period, and it is well designated as the 
reign of acrogen plants. 

In early geological times and particnlarly 
dnring the Carboniferous age, more moisture 
and carbonic acid gas, and less oxygen ex- 
isted in the atmosphere than at present. 
While this condition of things would make 
a paradise for plants and vegetables, espe- 
cially of the lower orders, it would be entirely 
unsuitable for air-breathing animals. The 
air was greatly purified during the Carbon- 
iferous age by the withdrawal of Carbonic 
acid gas, by the immense growth of vege- 
tables, for plants absorb or breathe this gas, 
and much of the superabundant moisture 
was absorbed by the rising of the continents 
out of the sea. Thus moisture and carbonic 
acid gas were removed and pure oxygen 
restored to the atmosphere, which was thus 
gradually prepared to support the life of 
air-breathing animals. 

The Mesozoic era follows the Palaeozoic, 
but unlike the latter, that consisted of three 
ages, the former embraces only one, the 
Age of Reptiles. Never in all geological 
ages were reptiles so abundant, of such vast 
proportions and such fine organism as dur- 
ing this era. Among animals, reptiles were 
so markedly predominant that the Mesozoic 
era is designated the Age of Reptiles. 

This era is divided into two periods or 



— 244 — 

rock systems, the Jura-Trias and the Creta- 
ceous (chalk). During this era reptiles 
were rulers on the land, in the air and in 
the sea. 

The Ichthyosaurus was a sea-serpent, 40 
feet long, eyes fifteen inches across and jaws 
set with hundreds of conical teeth. In this 
era flourished the Dinosaurs, colossal land 
reptiles, and the largest animals that ever 
walked the globe. The mighty Iguanodon 
and Megalosaurus were Dinosaurs. 

The marvelous Pterosaurs were winged 
reptiles. 

Next follows the Cenozoic (recent life) 
era and the age of Mammals. In this era 
throughout the earth Mammals are the 
dominant class of animals. The Mammal- 
ian age and Cenozoic era are divided into 
the Tertiary and Quaternary periods. The 
suddenness of the appearance of mammals 
in this era is very remarkable. True mam- 
mals of the highest order appear in vast 
numbers and great diversity in this era, 
without warning and without progenitors. 
Nowhere else in the history of the earth's 
fauna is the work of a special creation and 
a special providence more apparent. 

During Quaternary times, mammals at- 
tained their greatest development. This 
was the period of the Mammoth and the 
Mastodon, either more than twice the size 



— 245 — 

of the largest living elephant. It was, too, 
the period of the South American Megather- 
ium and Mylodon, and the Australian Dip- 
rotodon. 

The Quaternary period has been divided 
into the Glacial, Champlain and Terrace 
epochs. The terrible cold of the Glacial 
epoch is supposed to have been occasioned 
by the elevation of the northern hemisphere 
and to slow changes in the form and posi- 
tion of the earth's orbit (Croll). 

Geology teaches that the earth was spe- 
cially prepared for the Ps3xhozoic era and 
Age of Man by the extinction of the great 
ruling mammals of the Cenozoic era and a 
diminution of noxious animals and plants. 
The mammoth, mastodon, cave-bear and 
saber-toothed tiger disappeared before the 
advent of man. 

Geology clearly points out that the suc- 
cession of created beings on the earth's 
surface is the realization of an infinitely 
v/ise plan. Consequently there must be a 
necessary relation between the races of ani- 
mals and the epochs at which they appear. 

There has been a manifest progress in 
the succession of beings upon the globe. 
This progress consists in an increasing 
similarity to living animals and particularly 
in their increasing resemblance to Man. 
But this connection is not in consequence 



— 246 — 

of a direct lineage between the faunas of 
different ages. There is nothing like par- 
ental descent connecting them. The Fishes 
of the Palaeozoic era are in no respect the 
ancestors of the Reptiles of the Mesozoic 
era, nor does Man descend from the Mam- 
mals which preceded him in the Cenozoic 
era. The link by which they are connected 
is of a higher and immaterial nature ; and 
their connection is to be sought in the view 
of the Creator himself, whose aim, in form- 
ing the earth, in allowing it to undergo 
the successive changes which Geology has 
pointed out, and in creating successively all 
the different types of animals which have 
passed away, was to introduce Man upon 
the surface of our globe. 

Man is the end toward which all the 
animal creation has tended, from the first 
appearance of the first Palaeozoic Fishes. 
In the beginning His plan was formed, and 
from it He has never swerved in any partic- 
ular. The same Being who, in view of 
man's moral wants, provided and declared, 
thousands of years in advance, that " the 
seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's 
head,'' laid up also for him in the bowels of 
the earth those vast stores of granite, mar- 
ble, coal, salt, and the various metals, the 
product of its several revolutions ; and thus 
was an inexhaustible provision made for 



— 247 — 

his necessities, and for the development of 
his genius, ages in anticipation of his ap- 
pearance. 

When we consider the creations of the 
geological eras, the Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and 
Cenozoic, and compare them with those of 
the Days of Moses, we will find the Mosaic 
and geological records to have a wonderful 
coincidence. 

The Palaeozoic era rejoiced particularly 
in the extraordinary luxuriance of its vege- 
tation, and this corresponds to the Third 
Day of Genesis when God said: ^^Let the 
earth bring forth the green herb, and such 
as may seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit 
after its kind, which may have seed in itself 
upon the earth. And it was so done. And 
the earth brought forth the green herb, and 
such as yieldeth seed according to its kind, 
and the tree that beareth fruit, having seed 
each one according to its kind.'' 

The animals of the Mesozoic era and age 
of Reptiles correspond to the creations of 
the Fifth Day of Moses : " God also said : Let 
the waters bring forth the creeping creatures 
having life, and the fowl that may fly over 
the earth under the firmament of Heaven. 
And God created the great whales, and 
every living and moving creature which the 
waters brought forth, according to their 



— 248 — 

kinds, and every winged fowl according to 
its kind/' 

In the Mesozoic era and the Fifth Day 
reigned on the earth huge creeping things, 
lizards and crocodiles ; and the deep swarmed 
with its wonderful whales, not of the mam- 
malian but reptilian class. This era was 
a time of whale-like reptiles of the sea, 
monster creeping reptiles of the land, and 
reptilian birds of gigantic stature. 

The Cenozoic era and the Sixth Mosaic 
Day had its grand mammalian creatures. 
'' God said : Let the earth bring forth the 
living creature in its kind, cattle and creep- 
ing things, and beasts of the earth, according 
to their kinds. And it was done. And God 
made the beasts of the earth according to 
their kinds, and cattle and everything that 
creepeth on the earth after its kind.'^ 

Towards the end of the Sixth Day which 
corresponds to the Psychozoic era, God cre- 
ated man himself. It must be admitted 
that the chronology of the geologists is a 
very imperfect one indeed, very loose and 
broken. ^ But its links, wherever they can be 
traced, marvelously agree with the Mosaic 
record. 

Three of the Mosaic Days belong to 
Astronomy and three to Geology. The geo- 
logical records that have hitherto been 
brought to light, represent but the merest 



— 249 — 

fragment of the earth's past history. Each 
new year is adding to the store of facts 
already gathered. So that a geological 
hypothesis may be entirely consistent with 
the knowledge we possess to-day, and yet 
may be found altogether inconsistent with 
the knowledge we shall possess in a few 
years. 

An objection is raised against the har- 
mony of the Mosaic Days and the records of 
Geology, particularly concerning the history 
of early organic life on our globe. The 
Third Day of Moses corresponds with the 
Carboniferous period and yet there is evi- 
dence of the existence of both plant and ani- 
mal life long anterior to this, indeed as far 
back as the Laurentian Rocks themselves. 

Again, Moses represents the Fishes as 
having been created on the Fifth Day, cor- 
responding to the Mesozoic era. On the 
other hand the geological record assigns to 
the Devonian period, away back in the Palae- 
ozoic era, the reign of Fishes. 

But there is in reality no contradiction 
between the records. ^'The Sacred Writer 
tells us, no doubt, that on the Third Day 
God created plants and trees : but he does 
not say, either expressly or otherwise, that 
previous to the Third Day the Barth was 
devoid of vegetation. Again, we read that 
reptiles, fish, and birds were created on the 



— 250 — 

Fifth Day. But there is nothing in the 
language of the Inspired narrative from 
which it can be inferred that these several 
classes of animal life may not have been 
represented before that time, by many and 
various species: though probably, it was 
only on the Fifth Day that they were de- 
veloped in such vast numbers, and assumed 
such gigantic proportions, as to become the 
most conspicuous objects of creation. 

The first chapter of Genesis is but a brief 
summary of an inconceivably vast series of 
events. It is nothing more than a rapid 
sketch, exhibiting, as it were, to the eye the 
prominent features in the history of Crea- 
tion. Moreover, we should remember that 
it was written with a specific end in view. 
The purpose of the Sacred Writer was 
plainly to impress upon the Hebrew people, 
naturally prone to idolatry, the existence of 
One Supreme Being, who has made all 
things. Hence we should naturally expect 
that, amid the boundless variety of God's 
works, he would make choice of those that 
were most calculated to strike the mind with 
wonder and awe, and to bring home to a 
rude and uncultivated race of men the Al- 
mighty Power and Supreme Dominion of the 
Great Creator. Now the Zoophytes, and 
Graptolites and Trilobites, of the Devonian 
and Silurian periods, however curious and 



— 251 — 

interesting they may be to men of science, 
would have had but little significance for 
the Jewish people. Let us suppose that 
these more humble forms of animal life had, 
in fact, existed during the First and Second 
Days of the Mosaic narrative, and where is 
the wonder that the Inspired Historian, 
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, 
should pass them by in silence, and choose 
rather to commemorate the more striking 
and impressive facts, that, at the bidding of 
God, light shone forth from the midst of 
darkness, and the blue firmament of Heaven 
was expanded above the waste of waters ? 

We say, then, that events which are 
simply left unrecorded by the Sacred Writer 
are not, on that account, untrue, (St. Au- 
gustine, Confes. Lib. xii., cap. xxii) : that 
he describes to us, not all the works of Cre- 
ation, vv^hich would have been an endless 
task, but only the more conspicuous objects 
in each successive stage ; and that he sketches 
them, most probably, as they would have 
appeared to the eye of a human observer, if 
a human observer at the time had existed 
on the Earth. If this view be admitted, 
then it is not inconsistent with the Script- 
ure narrative to suppose that plants may 
have existed before the Third Day, and fish 
before the Fifth. 

^'Each Day in its turn would have been 



— 252 — 

rendered conspicuous to an observing spec- 
tator by those events v^hich are recorded by 
Moses. But each Day, too, would have wit- 
nessed many other events, unnoticed by 
Moses, of which the memorials have been 
preserved, even to our time, in the Crust of 
the Earth." (Molloy, page 352). 

Now it may well be asked where could 
Moses have obtained his marvelous knowl- 
edge regarding the order of creation? Not 
certainly from natural sources, no fossils 
had been then classified, no rock systems 
arranged, geology was not known. Must it 
not be confessed that his knowledge was 
the work solely of Divine inspiration? 



Chapter XV. 

RESULTS OF BIOLOGY. 

{Principles.) 

Among the bitterest and most persistent 
adversaries of the Mosaic record are a cer- 
tain class of agnostic biologists. They 
maintain that living beings have sprung 
from dead matter through spontaneous gen- 
eration, and from the very lowest monera 
came man after a long series of transmuta- 
tions. For it is the final purpose and object 
of Darwinism or Specific Evolution to dem- 



— 253 — 

onstrate the transmutation of brute animals 
into man by showing that one species can 
change into another. 

It is thus of paramount importance to set 
forth the vital principles of Biology, weigh 
the grounds for spontaneous generation and 
consider the doctrine of the descent of spe- 
cies. Biology (Gr. /5^'oc, life, and ^^oyo^j dis- 
course) is the science that treats of living 
beings and life in general. 

Life is a most difficult thing to define 
within proper limits, and indeed, its perfect 
definition seems to be an impossibility. 
One of its best definitions is that of G. H. 
Lewes: ^^Life is a series of definite and 
successive changes, both of structure and 
composition, which take place within an in- 
dividual without destroying its identity." 

The animal and vegetable kingdoms em- 
brace all living beings on our planet and 
hence Biology includes the sciences of Zo- 
ology and Botany. 

All objects in nature are either living or 
dead. The following leading characteristics 
may be said to distinguish living from dead 
bodies : i. Every living body has the power 
of assimilation or growth by which it takes 
into its interior certain materials foreign to 
those composing its own substance, and of 
converting these into the materials of which 
its body is built up. 



— 254 — 

When, on the other hand, dead bodies, 
such for instance as crystals, increase in size, 
the process is not growth but ^^ accretion ^^ 
of new matter. This accretion is the addi- 
tion of fresh particles from the exterior and 
there is no assimilation. 

2. The actions of living beings are ac- 
companied by a corresponding destruction 
of the matter by which these actions are 
manifested and the loss of matter is com- 
pensated for b}^ the simultaneous assimila- 
tion of an equivalent amount of fresh matter. 

3. Every living body, however humble it 
may be, and even if permanently rooted to 
one place, possesses, in some part or other, 
or at some period of its existence, a power 
of independent and spontaneous movement, 
a power possessed by nothing that is dead. 

Living matter, so long as it is living, is 
the seat of energy and can overcome the 
primary law of the inertia of matter. Dead 
matter is entirely passive, unable to originate 
motion, and equally unable to arrest it when 
once originated. 

Living differs from dead matter in its 
tendency to undergo cyclical changes. 

In the ordinary course of nature, all 
living matter proceeds from preexisting 
living matter, a portion of the latter being 
detached and acquiring an independent ex- 
istence. The new form takes on the char- 



— 255 — 

acters of that from which it arose ; exhibits 
^ the same power of propagating itself by 
means of an offshoot ; and, sooner or later, 
like its predecessor, ceases to live, and is re- 
solved into more highly oxidated compounds 
of its elements. As Professor Huxley re- 
marks, the present state of knowledge fur- 
nishes us with no link between the living 
and the not-living. 

5. Living and dead bodies radically differ 
in chemical composition. The combining 
elements in dead bodies unite with one 
another in low combining proportions, and 
the resulting compounds for the most part 
consist of no more than two or three ele- 
ments. The combinations of these elements 
may be said to be naturally in a state of 
stable equilibrium, and they show no tend- 
ency to spontaneous decomposition. 

Living bodies are composed of few chemi- 
cal elements and the combinations are always 
complex, consisting of three or four elements 
and these elements are united with one an- 
other in high combining proportions, 

A large proportion of water is present in 
the chemical compounds of living bodies 
and these are prone to spontaneous decom- 
position. 

Protein, the invariable basis of living 
bodies, is composed of 54 atoms of Carbon, 
7 of Hydrogen, 14 of Nitrogen, 24 of Oxy- 



— 256-- 

gen and 2 of Sulphur. This protein, united 
with a large proportion of water, forms the 
chief constituent of protoplasm. 

6. Again most living bodies are composed 
of organs or separate parts which have 
certain definite functions in the general 
economy, and are said to be organized. Or- 
ganization is not, however, an absolute 
necessity of vitality, as some living bodies 
are found that cannot be properly said to be 
organized. 

7. Dead bodies have either no definite 
shape, and are then said to be amorphous, or 
are crystalline, and so bounded by lines and 
planes. Living bodies are bounded for the 
most part by curves and are of a definite 
shape. The shapes of living bodies can 
never be confounded with the amorphous 
and crystalline forms of dead matter, al- 
though sometimes they are found without a 
fixed form. 

The conditions under which life can alone 
be manifested are of two kinds : The in- 
trinsic or indispensable conditions, v/ithout 
which life is impossible; and the extrinsic 
conditions w^hich are mostly present but not 
absolutely essential to the existence of living 
beings. 

The first condition demands the presence 
of a physical basis and the second condition 



— 257- 

the presence of organisation, light and air, 
and a certain temperature. 

The phenomena of life are associated 
necessarily with a particular form of matter 
termed the physical basis. The physical 
basis of life is named protoplasm, or better 
still, bioplasm. Naturalists are agreed gen- 
erally that the presence of protein or proto- 
plasm is an essential condition of vitality. 
It seems certain that no body unless com- 
posed of some form of this protoplasmic 
matter is capable of manifesting the phe- 
nomena of life. 

There are, however, two different senses 
in w^hich this statement is received. Some 
maintain that life is one of the properties of 
protoplasm, that protoplasm is not only a 
condition of vitality, but its very cause. 
Others and the more philosophic claim that 
protoplasm is merely a condition of vitality 
in the same sense that a metal rod or con- 
ductor is an essential condition of electricity. 
In discussing the question as to whether 
protein is a condition or cause of life, we 
must remember that w^e know only two fac- 
tors of the case : That certain phenomena 
called vital, are exclusively manifested by 
living beings ; and that these phenomena 
are never manifested except by a single form 
of matter, protoplasm, albumen or protein. 
Therefore, we conclude that there must be 

17 



— 258 — 

an intimate connection between vital phe- 
nomena and protoplasm or matter of life, 
bnt there is no warrant for the assertion 
that life is the resnlt of protoplasm or one 
of its properties. 

The more philosophical view as to the 
nature of the connection between life and 
its material basis, is the one which regards 
vitality as something superadded and foreign 
to the matter by which vital phenomena are 
manifested. A good conductor is necessary 
for the manifestation of electricity, but 
electricit}^ can exist in a world entirel}^ 
devoid of good conductors. 

Among the extrinsic conditions, not actu- 
• ally essential to living beings, but generally 
present, is organization. Most animals con- 
sist of definite parts or organs, with fixed 
relations to one another, and each discharg- 
ing its own work or function in the general 
economy. 

Many eminent naturalists have claimed 
that life is so inseparably connected with 
organization that it must be regarded abso- 
lutely as the result of organization. 

An examination, however, of the tiny 
creatures, Foraminifera, proves the contrary. 
These minute animals have no real organs, 
or organization. They consist of structure- 
less and formless albuminous matter. They, 
however, exhibit all the phenomena of life. 



— 259 — 

They assimilate nourishment, grow, main- 
tain their existence against hostile forces, 
have certain relations with the outer world, 
and reproduce their like. They manifest 
the highest functions of life without a single 
organ of any kind. Thus they show that 
organization is but a result of life, and not 
even a necessary result. Hence we see that 
an animal does not live because it is organ- 
ized ; it is organized or possesses structure 
because it is alive. 

Light. — In one sense light is absolutely 
essential to life. All animals are dependent, 
mediately or immediately^, upon plants for 
their food, for plants alone possess the power 
of building up organic compounds out of 
inorganic materials. Plants, however, or- 
dinarily, can accomplish this feat of vital 
chemistry only when supplied with the 
chemical rays of the sun, so that light is 
absolutely required for life. 

Again, some animals pass their entire life 
in total darkness, so that while light is 
necessary for animated nature as a whole, 
it is not essential to all living beings re- 
garded as individuals. 

Air. — Although certain low vegetable 
organisms, such as the bacteria, flourish in 
an atmosphere of Carbonic acid gas ; still 
the presence of atmospheric air seems to be 
essential to animal life ; and the presence of 



-260 — 

free oxygen may be considered as one of the 
extrinsic conditions of vitality. 

Temperature. — The higher manifesta- 
tions of life are generally considered possible 
only within a very limited range of temper- 
ature, or within loo"^ Fahrenheit, or from 32'' 
to about 130''. Very low organisms, how- 
ever, have been known to live within a much 
greater range, or from 20"^ to 300° Fahr. 

Water. — The physical basis of life or 
protoplasm demands the presence of a large 
proportion of water. Life, however, has 
been found in protoplasm, in a dormant con- 
dition, even in the total absence of water. 

All the above named conditions are more 
or less essential for the existence of life, so 
much so, that the absence of any one of them 
ordinarily causes death. There are, how- 
ever, some extraordinary exceptions to this. 
The Rotifers, microscopic creatures, but 
very highly organized, may be dried and 
reduced to dust, and kept in this state for 
an indefinite period of years. The addition 
of water will, after the lapse of all these 
years, restore their activity and vigor. These 
Rotifers, however, are merely in a state of 
suspended animation and are not really 
dead. This is an instance of revival but 
not a revitalization. 

The microscope has demonstrated that 
the tissues of plants and animals are com- 



— 261 — 

posed of an aggregation of minute elemental 
structures called cells. Tlie morphological 
unit of the whole living world is the cell^ 
which in its simplest condition is merely a 
spheroidal mass of protoplasm surrounded 
by a coat or sac called the cell-wall, which 
in vegetables contains cellulose, and in ani- 
mals albuminous matter. 

The cell is then the primary and funda- 
mental form of life. The simplest or most 
degraded form of life yet discovered is seen 
in a Moner, called Bathybius, found by 
Professor W3^ville Thompson, at a depth of 
2,435 fathoms, in the Bay of Biscay. 

The beings called Moners (Monera of 
Haeckel) are so simple in their structure, or 
rather, they are so entirely destitute of struc- 
ture, that it is doubtful whether they are 
plants or animals. They are merelj^ struc- 
tureless living albuminous jelly. In the 
Moner, then, the organism consists v/holly 
of what Professor Huxley and other writers 
call protoplasm, and Dr. Beale designates bi- 
oplasm, which is entirely structureless, since 
it exhibits nothing in the way of definite 
organs, and has, at most, a number of small 
particles or molecules scattered through it. 
Still, the little animal performs all the func- 
tions of nutrition and reproduction and 
manifests all the essential phenomena of 
life. (Bioplasm is colorless, transparent and 



— 2G2 — 

apparently structureless. It is strongly 
tinged by an ammoniacal solution of carmine. 
It has the power of spontaneous movement 
or of extending itself in all directions in the 
form of mutable processes which can be 
withdrawn at will. Bioplasm has the extra- 
ordinary power of flowing through closed 
membranes without losing its identity or 
form.) 

In some plants, termed unicellular, a single 
cell constitutes the entire organism, and in 
this solitary cell resides the power of both 
nutrition and reproduction. In the majority 
of cases, however, the organism of animal or 
plant is composed of a congeries of cells, 
each of which enjoys to a certain extent a 
life of its own, whilst its existence is, never- 
theless, bound up with that of the whole. 

The outer layer or membrane by which 
the cell is bounded is the cell-wall. It is 
not absolutely essential to the celFs exist- 
ence, nor the agent by which cellular activity 
is manifested. The cell-wall appears to be 
formed from the outermost portion of the 
cell-contents by a process of transformation 
or partial death. The vital activity of the 
cell seems to be more or less governed by 
the nature of the cell-wall ; the thicker and 
more developed becomes the cell-wall, the 
less efficient grows the cell. 

The cell-contents, the all important ele- 



— 263 — 

ment of tlie cell, are essentially of the nature 
of protoplasmic or bioplasmic matter. This 
is especially the case in young, actively 
growing cells, where the cell-wall bears but 
a small proportion to the cell-contents. 

The cell-contents, however, diminish in 
bulk in progress of growth, owing to the 
transformation of their outermost layers into 
formed material or cell-walls. The cell- 
contents contain more or less numerous 
molecules and granules ; they appear to be 
the main, and in some cases, the sole agent 
whereby the vital actions of the cells are 
carried on, and they constitute the only cell 
element the existence of w^hich is constant. 

The cell-contents contain generallj^, though 
not universally, a central dot or vesicle called 
the nucleus. The nucleus is oval or rounded ; 
sometimes solid, sometimes vesicular and 
sometimes composed of granules. The nu- 
cleus plays an important part in cell-life, it 
is colored extensively with carmine and 
often takes the initiative in the process of 
cell-multiplication. The nucleus is not ab- 
solutely essential to cells, as it is not in- 
variably present in them. The nucleus 
frequently contains in its interior a still 
smaller solid dot or particle called the nu- 
cleolus. 

Cells have the power of perpetuating 
themselves, by producing fresh cells by the 



— 264 — 

process of cytogenesis or cell-multiplication. 
Fresli cells are often produced within a 
parent-cell by the separation of the cell- 
contents into a greater or less number of 
distinct masses. The nucleus divides into 
two parts, and round each half the cell- 
contents aggregate so as to form two cells. 
These fresh nuclei divide again, giving rise 
to four cells and again to eight, and so on. 
This is the process of Endogenous cell- 
multiplication. 

Gemmiparous cell-multiplication takes 
place when new cells are formed by little 
buds which are thrown out by a parent cell. 
It is termed Fissiparous cell-multiplication 
when the parent cell divides by cleavage 
into two or four parts, each of which becomes 
an independent cell. 

Bvery animal, as well as every plant, no 
matter how highly organized, commences 
its existence as a simple cell, and the most 
recent biological researches teach, according 
to Huxley, that no cell has arisen otherwise 
than by becoming separated from the pro- 
toplasm of a pre-existing cell ; whence the 
aphorism ^^Omnis cellula e cellula.'' No 
living cell can come from dead matter. 



— 265 — 

Chapter XVI. 

RESULTS OF BIOLOGY. 

{Sp07ita7ieous Gefieration ?) 

Spontaneous Generation, or Abiogenesis, 
is the doctrine that animals might under 
certain favorable conditions be produced 
without parents, or living beings could be 
directly produced from inanimate material 
or dead matter. 

Materialistic naturalists have clung to 
this doctrine with a sort of desperation, for 
they have largely depended upon the estab- 
lishment of abiogenesis and transformation 
of species to overthrow the Mosaic records 
and drive the Creator out of the universe. 

Anaximander (6io B. C), of the Ionian 
school of Grecian philosophers, and later 
Aristotle of the Peripatetics, expressed their 
belief in spontaneous generation, as indeed 
did all the naturalists of antiquity more or 
less implicitly. 

This belief of the ancients was due to 
their incomplete knowledge regarding the 
real origin of many animal species. Thus, 
for instance, because maggots always ap- 
peared in putrefying meat at a certain stage 
of its decomposition, they were thought to be 
formed by spontaneous generation. Their 
existence could be accounted for in no other 



— 2G6 — 

way, as no creatures were to be found there 
previously. 

Francesco Redi (1668), of Arezzo, was 
the first to clearly enunciate the doctrine 
that living organisms must have originall}^ 
sprung from preexisting germs, and that in 
all cases of the apparent production of or- 
ganized beings from dead matter, as in 
putrefaction and animal and vegetable in- 
fusions, the previous existence or subsequent 
introduction of such germs must be pre- 
sumed. He exposed fresh meat, during 
warm weather, in wide-mouthed bottles, 
protected by pieces of paper fastened over 
their necks. In the bottles thus secured, 
no maggots were developed, notwithstanding 
that the putrefaction of the meat went on as 
usual; while in other similar vessels, unpro- 
tected by paper covers, maggots swarmed in 
abundance at the customary time. 

It was evident therefore that their origin 
was due to something introduced from 
without, and it soon appeared that they 
were really the progeny of flesh flies, w^hich, 
attracted by the odor of the meat, hovered 
over it until they gained access to it, and 
deposited their egg^ upon its surface. The 
eggs then hatched into maggots, which, after 
a certain period of growth, became trans- 
formed into perfect insects similar to their 
parents. 



— 267 — 

This simple but conclusive experiment of 
Redi, completely overthrew for the time the 
doctrine of the abiogenists and demonstrated 
that in what had been supposed to be cases 
of spontaneous generation, the animals were 
really produced from parents like them- 
selves. 

Spallanzani (1767) by a long series of in- 
genions experiments, confirmed the results 
of Redi. He went much further than Redi 
and demonstrated that even in the case of 
the infusoria there was no spontaneous 
generation, but that these animalcules were 
produced from atmospheric germs. 

Vallisneri, Swammerdam, Leuwenbock 
and other naturalists contributed additional 
arguments against the views of the abio- 
genists, so that from Redi^s time to the 
present, the tide of scientific opinion has 
turned strongly and generally against spon- 
taneous generation. 

On the appearance of the microscope the 
question of abiogenesis was again opened, 
and it was contended by many scientists 
that though the rule ^^omne vivum e vivo^' 
was applicable to the higher and more com- 
plex organisms, still, that Bacteria and the 
lowest Fungi and Protozoa were produced b}^ 
spontaneous generation directly from dead 
matter. 

The microscope discloses in animal and 



— 268 — 

vegetable infusions ni3^riads of tiny living 
organisms, entirely invisible to the unaided 
eye. An organic infusion is a fluid holding 
organic matter in solution, and is obtained 
by soaking an animal or vegetable substance 
in water. If the infusion is exposed to the 
air for a certain length of time, it will be- 
come tenanted by a multitude of living- 
organisms. A delicate film or scum is first 
formed upon the surface of the infusion, 
which, when examined under the microscope, 
is seen to consist of myriad moving mole- 
cules. The size of these points or molecules 
is almost infinitesimally small, and every in- 
crease of powder in the instrument discloses 
smaller and smaller living and floating 
particles. These organisms are certainly 
living, as they are noticed to be in very 
active and incessant movement. Whether 
these moving organisms are animal or vege- 
table is not certainly known, but it is prob- 
able that they are partly the one and partly 
the other. With length of exposure, many 
of these particles are seen to grow in size, 
some being short and staff-shaped, and 
known as bacteria ; and others long and 
worm-like and designated vibrios. It is 
very probable that both the bacteria and 
vibrios are vegetables. 

At a still later stage of the exposure, the 
infusorian animalcules appear, which are 



— 269 — 

most undoubtedly membervS of the animal 
kingdom. 

The great question is, how did these living 
organisms get into this infusion? Were 
they generated spontaneously from dead 
matter or did they spring from germs pre- 
viously existing in the air? 

A few scientists still maintain the former 
view, while the many, the accurate and the 
skillful support the latter. This last school 
of scientists contend that the air itself, and 
fluids and even many solid bodies exposed to 
it, are swarming with the minute germs of 
living beings of both the animal and vege- 
table kingdoms. That these germs may re- 
main dormant for great periods of time, have 
the power of withstanding temperatures that 
would be absolutely fatal to higher organ- 
isms ; but can spring into active life w^hen 
the surrounding conditions favor their de- 
velopment. These conditions are offered 
by organic infusions ; and it is thought that 
the living organisms that appear in them 
are merety developed from the atmospheric 
germs which fall into them from the air or 
are already contained in the solution itself. 
Both the opponents and advocates of abio- 
genesis admit that organic germs are present 
in the air and in many other places as wxll. 
It may be laid down as established that the 
atmosphere, most fluids and many organic 



— 270- 

and inorganic substances, contain the germs 
of organisms which are capable of being 
developed into active life, when once they 
are placed under suitable conditions. 

All nature teems with a life invisible ex- 
cept to the higher powers of the microscope, 
a life which reproduces itself by the ordinary 
and natural methods. The celebrated ex- 
periment of Professor Schulze of Berlin to 
determine whether the organisms found in 
infusions are produced abiogenetically or 
not, shows that with due precaution no 
animal or vegetable organisms appear when 
the liquid is absolutely protected from an 
access of the air. The experiment was un- 
interruptedly continued from the 28th of 
May until the beginning of August ; '' and 
when, at last, the Professor separated the 
different parts of the apparatus, he could 
not find in the whole liquid the slightest 
trace of infusoria or confervae, or of mould; 
but all three presented themselves in great 
abundance a few days after he had left the 
flask standing open.'' 

A vessel with a similar infusion, which 
he placed near the apparatus, contained 
vibriones and monads on the second day of 
the experiment, to which were soon added 
larger infusoria. 

It is certain that the great majority of 
conscientious and skillful experimenters 



— 271 — 

have found that if the infusion is properl}- 
prepared so as to destroy all organic germs 
in the liquid itself, and exclude those from 
without, no germs will appear. 

Some experimenters, however, still claim 
that when using every precaution, the or- 
ganic germs still appear or are spontane- 
ously generated. Pouchet made this claim 
a few years ago, repeating, as he af&rms, 
Schulze^s experiment with great precaution. 

Dr. Charlton Bastian is another who main- 
tains that experiments made by him prove 
the occurrence of spontaneous generation. 
He took an organic infusion, boiled it to 
expel, as far as possible, the air and kill any 
germs that might be present in the fluid, 
and then hermetically sealed the neck of 
the flask in the flame of a spirit lamp. The 
flask was then submitted for hours to a 
temperature considerably above the boiling- 
point, and then allowed to remain unopened 
for a varying period. The doctor asserts 
that notwithstanding the vigorous tests he 
employed, the fluid in the flask after a cer- 
tain time was almost invariably found to 
show under the microscope many living 
organisms, both of animal and vegetable 
nature. Knowing very well that the great 
majority of careful experimenters find an 
entirely different result from that of the 



— 272 — 

Doctor, it is natural to conclude that some 
fallacy lurks under his experiments. 

It may be that he did not use a temper- 
ature sufficiently high to kill the germs, as 
it is well known that the living germs of 
some of the lowest animals and plants are 
not destroyed by a temperature equal to 
that of boiling water. Indeed some of the 
lowest forms of life may be able to endure 
conditions which at first sight might be re- 
garded as inevitably destructive of vitality. 

Mr. Calvert has lately shown experiment- 
ally that vibrios can endure a temperature 
in some cases exceeding 300^ Fahr. without 
being killed thereby. It is fairly certain 
that life is destroyed in most of the higher 
organisms in a range of temperature between 
104'' and 208"" Fahr. But it cannot be proven 
that this range is fatal to all living matter. 
The influence of temperature on life is great- 
ly modified by the nature of the medium in 
which organisms are placed, and on the 
length of time the temperature is applied. 

Most careful experimenters have found 
that if an ordinary infusion of hay is boiled 
but for a few minutes, no development of 
bacteria takes place in it, however long it 
may be kept ; while if a little ammonia or 
potash had been added to the infusion it 
would not become sterilized until after an 



— 273 — 

exposure to the temperature of boiling water 
for more than an hour. 

Sometimes in the alkaline infusion, the 
bacteria were produced after an exposure of 
two hours and even after three hours. It is 
also found that a longer exposure to a lower 
temperature is equal to a shorter exposure 
to a higher temperature. For instance, an 
exposure of an hour and a half to a temper- 
ature of 212° Fahr. seems equivalent to an 
exposure of fifteen minutes to one of 228° 
Fahr. Thus the fact that Pouchet and Bas- 
tian exposed an organic infusion to a certain 
degree of temperature, and afterwards dis- 
covered living germs in the liquid, is not 
of the smallest value as proof that abio- 
genesis has taken place. There is no proof, 
for instance, that the organisms are dead 
after the boiling, except that their perma- 
nent incapacity to grow and reproduce their 
kind ; and, again, since we know that con- 
ditions may largely modify the power of 
resistance of such organisms to heat, it is 
far more probable that such conditions ex- 
isted in the experiments in question, than 
that the organisms were generated afresh 
out of dead matter. 

Pasteur has been one of the most brilliant 
experimenters on the developments of or- 
ganic infusions. He and his associates 
have established the existence in the air of 

18 



— 274 — 

extraneous particles, the introduction of 
which into an infusion was the necessary 
condition of infusorial life. 

Jeffries Wyman demonstrated that bacteria 
might appear in closed flasks after boiling ; 
but that the longer the boiling continued, 
the fewer the instances in which bacteria 
were afterward developed; and they never 
appeared in infusions which had been boiled 
continuously for five or six hours. Cohn 
observed certain bodies in connection with 
bacteria, which he designates as resting 
spores, or spores which do not immediately 
germinate, but remain quiescent for a certain 
interval and afterward become developed 
under other conditions. 

According to Billroth, although the life 
of bacteria is destroyed by boiling, their 
resting spores will withstand this temper- 
ature, and are afterward capable of develop- 
ment into active forms. This may explain 
the occasional appearance of microscopic 
life in organic solutions which have been 
subjected to boiling. 

Professor Huxley well remarks : '' Not 
only is the kind of evidence adduced in favor 
of abiogenesis, logically insufficient to fur- 
nish proof of its occurrence, but it may be 
stated as a well-based induction, that the 
more careful the investigator, and the more 
complete his mastery over the endless prac- 



— 275 — 

tical difficulties wliich surround experi- 
mentation on this subject, the more certain 
are his experiments to give a negative result ; 
while positive results are no less sure to 
crown the efforts of the clumsy and the 
careless/' 

But it is argued that the hypothesis of 
Evolution necessarily demands a belief in 
abiogenesis. So much the worse for evolu- 
tion. Professor Huxley admits: ^^That at 
the present moment there is not a shadow 
of trustworthy direct evidence that abio- 
genesis does take place, or has taken place, 
within the period during which the existence 
of life on the globe is recorded/' 

But if materialistic evolution is true, liv- 
ing organisms must have arisen from not- 
living matter, because this hypothesis of 
evolution does not admit of a creative act, 
and insists moreover that this globe was 
once in the gaseous state. 

The Evolution hypothesis of the material- 
ists is that in the early stages of the earth's 
history, life could not possibly exist upon 
it, owing to the high temperature and the 
peculiar combination of its chemical ele- 
ments, and as living beings subsequently 
made their appearance, they must neces- 
sarily have originated by the spontaneous 
organization of inanimate materials ; and 
that these primitive and imperfect structures 



— 276 — 

have gradually, by modification and descent, 
given rise to all the forms of animal and 
vegetable life now inhabiting the globe. 

When the globe was in this glowing gas- 
eous condition, living matter could not have 
existed in it, life being entirely incompatible 
with the gaseous state. 

Rejecting the idea of a creative act, and 
driven from abiogenesis, these materialistic 
evolutionists adopt the hypothesis of Sir W. 
Thomson that the germs of living things 
have been transported to our globe from 
some other world. But no hypothesis could 
possibly be more absurd and ridiculous than 
this. Sir William in his anxiety to ignore 
the existence of God and the creative act, 
repudiates entirely his scientific instincts, 
for he is certainly a great scientist, particu- 
larly in the field of electricit}^ 

No matter from abroad, from planetary 
or interstellar spaces, can reach the earth's 
surface without being enormously heated. 
Once any particle of matter comes within 
the earth's attraction, it is drawn with 
might}^ force. When the body reaches our 
atmosphere, its velocity is very great and 
the friction of the air would raise it into 
the hundred of thousand degrees Fahr. 
The earth is moving in its orbit around the 
sun at a speed of i8 miles a second. This 
velocity alone would heat the body encount- 



Z / / 



ering our atmosphere to a very higli degree 
of temperature, amply sufficient to absolute- 
ly dissipate into vapor any organic germs 
that might be found upon it. While the 
surface of such wandering bodies would be 
thus raised to a glowing heat, the interior 
is chilled with the cold of space, 400"" Fahr. 
below zero. The heat of the surface and 
the cold of the interior would be alike ab- 
solutely fatal to living germs. 



Chapter XVII. 

RESULTS OF BIOLOGY. 

( Transmutation of Species ?) 

To justly define the term species is one 
of the greatest difficulties in the v/hole range 
of Biology. The word itself is derived from 
the Latin, specere, to look, and signifies the 
natural appearance, the shape, form, quality 
or kind. 

Webster defines species as a permanent 
class of existing things, or beings, associated 
according to attributes, or properties which 
are determined by scientific observation. 
These attributes differ in the different 
sciences. In the kingdom of life, a species 
is an ideal group of individuals resembling 
one another in essential characteristics, and 



— 278 — 

capable of indefinitely contiiuied fertile re- 
production through the sexes. 

A form resulting from variation which 
may be perpetuated by any mode of propa- 
gation, is called a variety or race. 

The great Swede, Linnaeus, one of the 
most philososophic naturalists of all the 
ages, says: ^^Totidem numeramus species 
quot in principio formse sunt creatse '^ ('' We 
reckon as many species as there were forms 
created in the beginning''). 

Linnaeus embodies in this fam^ous formula 
the theory of creation and the permancy of 
species. He admitted the existence of vari- 
eties or the variability of species within a 
limited range. 

This opinion of Linnaeus concerning 
species carries great weight, for he was a 
naturalist of transcendent merit, remarkable 
for his enthusiasm and untiring industry as 
well as for the systematic spirit of inquir}^ 
pervading his immense labors. 

Naturalists generally have regarded spe- 
cies as unchanging throughout the longest 
succession of generations, except within nar- 
row and marked limits, and have substan- 
tially adopted the definition of Buffon : ^^A 
species is a constant succession of individuals 
similar to and capable of reproducing each 
other.'' 

Few works have ever met with such sue- 



— 279 — 

cess as the Natural Histor}^ of Bnffon. It has 
been translated into most of the languages 
of Christendom. No naturalist that ever 
lived had deeper intuitions of the unitary 
laws of nature, physical, instinctual, and 
rational, than Buffon ; and few writers on 
nature had more poetical views of truth and 
beauty than he. When he has declared 
himself so strongly for the fixity of species, 
it deservedly has great weight with natural- 
ists. 

/^That which is the most constant and 
unalterable in nature,'^ says Bufi'on, ^^is the 
type or form of each species ; that which is 
the most variable and corruptible is the 
matter or the substance which clothes the 
form.'^ 

Lamarck, however, about the beginning 
of the present century denied the perma- 
nence and separate creation of species, de- 
claring that existing forms of life have 
descended by true generation from pre- 
existing forms. He maintained that all 
species, man included, are descended from 
species of inferior organization ; w^hilst to 
account for the simple forms found at the 
present time upon the earth, he claims that 
they are the product of spontaneous gener- 
ation. 

Lamarck '' conceived that, an animal being 
brought into new circumstances, and called 



— 280 — 

upon to accommodate itself to these, the 
exertions which it consequently made to 
that effect, caused the rise of new parts, on 
the contrary, when new circumstances left 
certain existing parts unused, these parts 
gradually ceased to exist. Something an- 
alogous was produced in vegetables, by 
changes in their nutrition, in their absorp- 
tion and transpiration, and in the quantity 
of caloric, light, air, and moisture which 
they received. This principle, with time, 
is sufficient for the advance from the nomad 
to the mammal/^ 

Thus, Lamarck rests his hypothesis chief- 
ly on the well-known effect of use or exercise 
in changing and strengthening an organ, 
and of disuse in destroying or atrophying it. 

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and others followed 
closely after Lamarck, but with more caution. 

Lamarck's admirers and followers admit 
that he claimed entirely too much for the 
effect of use, or disuse. Use and disuse 
could never do what he demands of them. 
Even Darwin, who always moves with the 
greatest scientific caution, completely rejects 
Lamarck's notion, that new and simple 
forms are continually being produced by 
spontaneous generation. ^^I need hardly 
say,'' remarks Darwin, '' that science in her 
present state does not countenance the belief 



— 281 — 

that living creatures are now ever produced 
from inorganic matter.'' 

In 1798, Lamarck was intrusted with the 
department of invertebrata in the museum 
of natural history in Paris. He became a 
great student of these inferior organisms and 
did a great deal for this branch of Zoology. 
He is the father of the doctrine of appetency, 
or that new organs could be produced in 
animals by the simple exertion of the will, 
called into action by the creation of new 
wants ; and that the organs thus acquired 
could be transmitted by generation. 

In support of his doctrine, Lamarck cites 
the existence of tentacles on the head of the 
snail, which derive their origin from the 
desire of the animal united with endeavor 
perpetuated and imperceptibly working its 
effect through a series of generations^ to 
possess organs capable of examining the 
bodies it encounters ; and the same thing 
has happened, he asserts, ^' to all races of 
gasterpods, in which necessity has induced' 
the habit of touching bodies with some part 
of their head.'' 

His greatest admirers are forced to admit 
that Lamarck as a naturalist is very marked- 
ly deficient in sobriety of thought, precision 
of statement, and coolness of judgment. 

Lamarck is considered the modern origi- 
nator of the hypothesis of the variation of 



— 282 — 

species, because lie first drew public atten- 
tion to it. He was most enthusiastic in 
maintaining liis doctrines and when he 
found facts wanting to support his views, 
he freely called upon his fancy to supply 
them. And Lamarck although a famous 
zoologist, has rendered himself frequently 
ridiculous by his unlikely statements. 

The greatest because the ablest advocate 
of the variability of species or the hypothe- 
sis of evolution, was Charles Darwin. He 
attributes to natural selection the of&ce 
given to use and disuse by Lamarck. He 
maintains that variation in species is con- 
tinually taking place owing to the external 
conditions to which plants and animals are 
subjected. In support of his position he 
adduces the changes which are known to 
result from domestication and cultivation. 
The weakest link in his chain of argument 
is his confounding of variety with species. 
He scarcely makes any distinction between 
these terms. He thus places the exception 
on an equal footing with the rule. Variety 
is the exception and species the rule. 

Alluding to the selection that man must 
make in producing new^ breeds or varieties, 
he insists that nature has recourse to a sim- 
ilar selection, in the struggle for life, which 
all animals and plants must undergo. In 
this struggle the stronger or more favored 



— 283 — 

organisms must overcome the weaker which 
latter must cease to exist. 

He says that every animal and plant must 
maintain this struggle for life and be suc- 
cessful in maintaining it in order to its 
continued existence, not only against those 
creatures that make it their food, but also 
against those that feed with it upon the same 
nutriment. Thus, the possession of any 
slight advantage in the means of procuring 
food, or in the powers of offence or defence, 
may entirely displace less favored ones, and 
a slight variation of this kind which often 
takes place may be perpetuated. 

The struggle for life is the fundamental 
principle of Darwinism. With Darwin the 
modifications thus introduced by the strug- 
gle for life account for the changes in or- 
ganized beings from one geological period 
to another, and for the great differences in 
the plants and animals of different parts of 
the world. ^^ Can it be thought improbable,'^ 
says Darwin, ^^ seeing that variations useful 
to man have undoubtedly occurred, that 
other variations needful in some v^^ay to 
each being in the great and complex battle 
of life, should sometimes occur in the course 
of thousands of generations? If such do 
occur, can we doubt — remembering that 
mau}^ more individuals are born than can 
possibl}^ survive — that individuals having 



— 284 — 

an}^ advantage, however slight, over others, 
would have the best chance of surviving and 
of procreating their kind? On the other 
hand, we may feel sure that any variation 
in the least degree injurious w^ould be rigid- 
ly destroyed. The preservation of favorable 
variations and the rejection of unfavorable 
variations, I call Natural Selection. Varia- 
tions neither useful nor injurious would not 
be affected by natural selection, and would 
be left a fluctuating element, as perhaps 
we see in the species called polymorphic.^^ 

Darwin remarks that the eff'ects of natural 
selection would best be seen in islands and 
countries surrounded by great barriers and 
regions undergoing strong phj^sical changes. 
^^ In such cases,'' he says, ^^ every slight 
modification, which in the course of ages 
chanced to arise, and which in any way 
favored the individuals of any of the species, 
by better adopting them to their altered 
conditions, would tend to be preserved ; and 
natural selection would thus have free scope 
for the work of improvement." 

As a further proof of his hypothesis of 
natural selection he declares: ^^That it is 
the common, the widely diffused, and widely 
ranging species, belonging to the larger 
genera within each class, which vary most." 

The chief difficulty of his hypothesis, the 
absence or rarit}^ of transitional varieties, 



— 285 — 

he accounts for by supposing the predomi- 
nant forms to have taken possession of their 
districts, whilst these were in process of 
being stocked; and that these districts, 
differing much in their natural characters, 
the forms originating in the comparatively 
unextensive intermediate tracts, have not 
been able to contend against them, and have 
become extinct. He points out the possi- 
bility that areas nov/ continuous may not 
have been so during a long period, and that 
species may have been formed whilst they 
were broken up into islands. 

Darwin goes on to say that : '' several facts 
make me suspect that nerves sensitive to 
touch may be rendered sensitive to light, 
and likewise to those coarser vibrations of 
the air which produce sound.'' 

Darwin depends a great deal on the unity 
of type throughout v/hole classes of creatures, 
and the homologies of parts very different 
from each other, as in the four-limbed struc- 
ture of the vertebrates generally, and even 
the articulations of the limbs. He endeav- 
ors to trace the eye from the simplest to the 
most perfect form and to show how gradual 
are the transitions found on comparison of 
existing creatures, from the one to the other. 

Darwin's treatise on hybridism is quite 
extensive and he tries to show that the gen- 
eral sterility of hybrids presents no insuper- 



— 286 — 

able objection to the hypothesis of a gradual 
modification of species, their sterility being 
incidental on other differences, and sterility 
occurring as he labors hard to prove, when 
varieties are crossed, as well as in the hy- 
brids of distinct species. 

Geology is the nemesis of the Darwinian 
hj'pothesis. The difficulties presented by 
geology, Darwin endeavors to obviate by 
insisting on the imperfection of the geo- 
logical record. He does not indeed go so 
far as to adopt the view of some of his 
collaborateurs that the geological record ex- 
hibits to us a succession of animals corre- 
sponding in their progressive development 
with the foetal development of the mam- 
malian embryo. But he points in his own 
defence to the many connecting links in 
the general system of nature which fossils 
seem to supply when compared with existing 
species. 

He also tries to show that his hypothesis 
is consistent with the known facts of the 
geographical distribution of species, and in 
particular with the remarkable facts of the 
peculiarity of the fauna and flora of some of 
the lonely oceanic islands and of the fre- 
quent occurrence of the same species both 
in cold regions comparatively near the pole, 
and on mountains far remote from each 
other in lower latitudes ; referring the latter 



-287 — 

class of facts to former geological periods, 
wlieu the continental areas were not the 
same as now, or when the prevailing cli- 
matic conditions were very different. 

He points to the correspondence without 
identity, of the faunas and floras of the 
northern parts of America and of the Old 
World in support of his position. 

The claims of Darwinism or of the Hy- 
pothesis of Evolution may be reduced to a 
few leading heads, as follows : 

^'Although the individuals of the animal 
and vegetable kingdoms bear a general like- 
ness to their progenitors, still they are not 
like them in every respect but slightly vary 
in some particular or other. 

These variations, however slight, may be 
transmitted under certain favorable circum- 
stances from generation to generation. 

By breeding or artificial selection, man 
has produced races in which the variation 
has become permanent and frequently as 
widely different from the original progeni- 
tors as are some species from one another. 

Our planet is changing and new conditions 
of life are constantly arising. 

Animals and plants give rise to more 
progeny than can be preserved and the 
young not being exactly alike, natural 
selection will ensue wherebv individuals 
possessing any variation favorable to the 



— 288- 

peculiarities of the species will tend to be 
preserved. Individuals wanting these favor- 
able conditions will gradually disappear in 
the struggle for existence. 

Individuals least adopted to their environ- 
ment will be weeded out in this sifting pro- 
cess, while the " survival of the fittest '^ is 
secured. 

The fortunate individuals will transmit 
to future generations the variations, to which 
they owe their preservation. 

Thus varieties are produced, then races 
and with sufficient time (infinite) distinct 
species appear. 

Given infinite time for the work of evolu- 
tion on the surface of our globe all the 
animals and plants now flourishing may 
have been derived by natural selection from 
a single primitive being.'^ 

Admitting the insuperable objections 
against natural selection being alone a suffi- 
cient cause for the production by evolution 
of all existing species from pre-existing 
ones Darwin sought a supplementary cause 
in what he terms " Sexiial Selection, ^^ 

Darwin maintains that among many of 
the animal species there is always a severe 
contest between the males for the possession 
of the females, these latter yielding them- 
selves passably to the victors. 



— 289 — 

In these contests the victorious males 
must certainly have a natural advantage of 
some kind over the discomfited ones. The 
victors will have the more numerous prog- 
eny and these will perpetuate the advantage 
of their progenitors. 

Again he asserts that in other animal 
species the choice of' pairing lies with the 
female, the male being passive. The females 
select the more desirable m^ales, Darwin 
claiming that color and song are the most 
potent factors in directing their choice. 
These attractions will be passed down and 
intensified from generation to generation 
and form well-marked breeds. 

The following are the difficulties which 
the disciples of the Darwinian hypothesis 
have failed to answer satisfactorily upon the 
principle of natural selection: ^^ Variations 
must exist before natural selection can take 
hold of them and preserve them. 

Natural selection can preserve a variation 
but cannot initiate one. Natural selection 
has nothing whatever to do with the origin 
of a variation and variability in the indi- 
vidual must depend upon an internal law 
with which we are not acquainted. 

The law that originates a variation must 
be of more importance than the one that 
preserves it. Unfavorable variations must 
be as common as favorable ones. The best 

19 



— 290 — 

that natural selection can do is to preserve 
the latter while it can produce neither. 

Seeing that natural selection cannot oc- 
casion the most insignificant variation to 
demand any belief in it as a constant and 
universal agent in modif3dng all living 
beings, requires that variations should be 
continually occurring and that they should 
not be extensive in amount. 

But the contrary we know to be true, that 
sudden and striking variations frequently 
occur for which no cause can be given and 
for which natural selection cannot possibly 
account. This very much enhances the 
probability that variability of every kind 
depends on some internal law entirely inde- 
pendent of outside conditions. 

A favorable variation must occur simul- 
taneously in many individuals to produce a 
new breed or variety. A variation, however 
favorable, has no chance of perpetuating 
itself unless it presents itself in more than 
one individual at the same time. But the 
probabilities are overwhelmingly against the 
simultaneous appearance of the same varia- 
tion in numerous individuals of a species. 

Thus while man with great care and wise 
intelligent choice may produce a new breed 
it is highly improbable that natural selec- 
tion if left to itself, can produce a permanent 
new variety. The same parents may give 



— 291 — 

rise to several groups of individuals differ- 
ing widely in some characteristics from each 
other and from the parents, but which are 
sexless and so incapable of perpetuating 
their peculiarities by way of inheritance, and 
yet heredity is the only medium through 
which natural selection can operate.^' 

The doctrine of evolution by natural 
selection requires that the variability of a 
species is indefinite. Now, while it is a 
well-known fact that the individuals com- 
posing any species vary more or less among 
themselves, still there is no proof that the 
variability of any species is indefinite. On 
the contrary, there are very strong reasons 
to show that each species is bounded by an 
uncertain but definite range of variability. 
And, however far apart the extreme terms 
of this range may lie, there runs between 
them the ^^ine of safety'' or normal line 
which is occupied by the individuals which 
are looked on as the type of the species. 

The advocates of natural selection tell us 
that its action is extremely slow. The 
records of Geology show that geological 
time must have been really vast, still it 
would be no more than a mere drop in the 
ocean compared wnth the inconceivable lapse 
of time required by natural selection, ac- 
cording to the figures of its advocates, to do 
its work. 



— 292 — 

The essence of the doctrine of evolution 
b}^ natural selection is the almost entire 
impossibility of one species being converted 
into another otherwise than by an extremely 
slow process, during which a vast number 
of generations lived and died. 

We have certain definite data as to the 
duration of a species. For we know that 
many existing species have lived without 
change, during a very vast period of time. 
Both geology and astronomy claim to show 
that the space of time required by natural 
selection for the biological revolutions which 
we know to have occurred since the Lauren- 
tian period is a physical impossibility. 

And Sir William Thomson demonstrates 
that there are good grounds to be drawn 
from other departments of physical science 
to show that the time which has elapsed 
since the appearance of life on the globe is 
far below that demanded by natural selec- 
tion to accomplish the task demanded of it 
by its advocates. 

H. Alleyne Nicholson, an impartial wit- 
ness, says in his Biolog}^: ^^The theory of 
the evolution of species by natural selection 
implies of necessity that one species can 
only be converted into another through the 
medium of a great number of successive 
forms, graduating into one another, each 
member of the series differing from its im- 



— 293 — 

mediate neighbors in but minute characters. 
If, therefore, any existing species has de- 
scended from an}^ pre-existing species, there 
must at one time have existed between the 
two species a graduated series of intermedi- 
ate forms. When we consider the enormous 
number of living animals and plants, and 
the still mxore enormous number of extinct 
forms which we know, or may infer, to have 
existed in past time, it becomes clear — if 
evolution be true — that the number of mi- 
nutely intermediate forms must have been 
incalculablv o:reat. We have therefore the 
clear right to expect that Palaeontology 
should reveal to us such intermediate forms, 
amongst the vast series of fossil remains 
with which we are acquainted. We cannot, 
however, in any case point to such forms. 
It is quite true that there are many instances 
in w^hich fossil animals ma}^ be regarded as 
intermediate forms between great groups of 
living forms, as missing links in the zoolog- 
ical chain. Such intermediate forms, how- 
ever, are invariabh' sharply separated from 
the forms which the}^ connect ; and no case 
is yet known to us, even taking the Tertiarj^ 
period alone, in which we can point to a 
graduated series of intermediate forms, by 
which one wxll-marked species can be shown 
to pass into another equally well-marked 
species.'^ 



— 294 — 

Charles Darwin was iincloiibtedl}^ a great 
naturalist. His work, ^' Origin of Species 
by means of Natural Selection/^ was prob- 
ably the most remarkable volume of the 
century. It reached immediately a marvel- 
ous fame, perhaps because of the novelty, 
plausibility and sensationalism of its doc- 
trine. But it is also remarkable for its 
literary merit, great research and shrewd 
scientific treatment. 

Darwin was a voluminous writer on nat- 
ural history and one of the very first to 
popularize science. He was, however, more 
of a writer on science than a worker in it. 
He certainly has not done the work for the 
natural sciences that Linnaeus, Cuvier, Bufif- 
on, De Condolle and Agassiz have done. 
His hypothesis, like all novelties and sensa- 
tions in the scientific world, however popular 
and successful at first, is being tested in the 
crucible of facts and is declared a failure 
because it cannot satisfactorily answer the 
difficulties pressed against it. Darwin main- 
tained the physiological relationship and 
community of origin of all living beings and 
attempted to account for the diversities of life 
on our globe by means of continuous de- 
velopment, without the intervention of a 
special creative act at the origin of each 
species. 

The greatest names in the natural sciences 



— 295 — 

have held different opinions and have de- 
clared his views to be unfounded. 

The advocates of the doctrine of special 
creation claim that species are practically 
immutable productions, each of which has 
been specially created at some point within 
the area in which we now find it, subse- 
quently spreading from this spot as far as 
the conditions of life were suitable for it. 
And when a species is found occupying 
two widely remote regions, it is in conse- 
quence of some geological change dividing 
the original area, or because the species had 
been carried accidentally to a distance from 
its primitive home. 

As previously stated Linnaeus and Buffon 
believed in the immutability of species. 

The eminent De Candolle, who certainly 
stands in the foremost ranks of botanical 
science, says : " We unite under the designa- 
tion of a species all those individuals that 
mxutually bear to each other so close a re- 
semblance as to allow of our supposing that 
they may have proceeded originally from a 
single being or a single pair.^' 

The greatest of zoologists, Cuvier, who 
first arranged the animal world under the 
four types of vertebrata, mollusca, articulata 
and radiata, defines a species as '^a succes- 
sion of individuals which reproduces and 
perpetuates itself.'^ 



— 296 — 

Cuvier in his introduction to liis Animal 
Kingdom also says : '' There is no proof that 
all the differences Avhich now distinguish 
organized beings are such as may have been 
produced by circumstances. All that has 
been advanced upon this subject is hypothet- 
ical ; experience seems to show, on the con- 
trar}^, that in the actual state of things 
varieties are confined within rather narrow 
limits, and, so far as we can retrace antiquity, 
we perceive that these limits were the same 
as at present. We are thus obliged to admit 
of certain forms which since the origin of 
things have been perpetuated, without ex- 
ceeding these limits ; and all the beings 
appertaining to one of these forms constitute 
what is termed a Species. Varieties are 
accidental subdivisions of species. Gener- 
ation being tlie only means of ascertaining 
the limits to which varieties ma}^ extend, 
species should be defined, the reunion of 
individuals descended from one another, or 
from common parents, or from such as 
resemble them as closely as they resemble 
each other.'' Cuvier believed in the abso- 
lute fixity of species. 

Le Conte says : " The studj^ of species, as 
they now are, would probably not suggest, 
certainly could not prove, the theory of 
their origin b}^ derivation or transmutation.'' 

And Asa Gray: ^^But organic things, 



— 297 — 

vegetables and animals, exist as individual 
beings. Each owes its existence to a parent, 
and produces similar individuals in its turn. 
So each individual is a link of a chain ; and 
to this chain the natural-historian applies 
the name of SpECIES. All the descendants 
from the same stock therefore compose one 
species. And it was from our observing, 
that the several sorts of plants or animals 
steadily reproduce themselves, — or, in other 
words, keep up a succession of similar in- 
dividuals, — that the idea of species origi- 
nated. So we are led to conclude that the 
Creator established a definite number of 
species at the beginning, which have con- 
tinued by propagation, each after its kind.'' 
Agassiz and Gould in their Zoology: 
^'The specific name is the lowest term to 
which we descend, if we except certain 
peculiarities, generally induced by some 
modification of native habits, such as are 
seen in domestic animals. These are called 
varieties, and seldom endure beyond the 

causes which occasion them The 

constancy of species is a phenomenon depend- 
ing on the immaterial nature. Animals^ 
and plants also, produce their kind, gener- 
ation after generation. We shall hereafter 
show that all animals maj^ be traced back, 
in the embryo, to a mere point in the yolk 
of the ^g^^ bearing no resemblance whatever 



— 298-^ 

to the future animal ; and no inspection 
would enable us to declare with certainty 
what that animal is to be. But even here 
an immaterial principle is present, which no 
external influence can essentially modify, 
and determines the growth of the future 
being. The egg of the hen, for instance, 
cannot be made to produce any other animal 
than a chicken, and the egg of the codfish 
produces only the cod. It may therefore be 
said with truth, that the chicken and the 
cod existed in the egg before their formation 
as such. ... It is a matter of common 
observation, that individuals of the same 
species have the same general appearance, 
by which their peculiar organization is 
indicated. The transmission of these char- 
acteristics, from one generation to the next, 
is justly considered as one of the great laws 
of the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms. It 
is, indeed, one of the points on which the 
definition of species is generally founded. '' 

Thus the men who have done the most 
for the natural sciences are a unit for the 
special creation and constancy of species. 



— 299 — 

Chapter XVIII. 

RESULTS OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 

[The Human Species,) 

Anthropology is derived from the Greek, 
avdpco-^oz, man, and '^oyo::, discourse, and is the 
science of man considered in his entirety as 
composed of a body and souL 

It is the highest branch of Zoology and 
embraces -in some measure the sciences of 
Anatomy, Phj^siology, Psychology, Philolo- 
gy, Ethnology, Ethics and Sociology. 

The question as to whether the human 
species is one or several, has divided anthro- 
pologists into Monogenists and Polygenists. 

Monogenists say that all the races of men 
are derived from one common stock, that 
there is but one single human species, and 
that the differences of color, features and 
stature which distinguish the inhabitants of 
the different countries of the world are the 
result of accidental conditions which only 
form varieties of a primitive type. 

The Polygenists assert that the above 
differences are fundamental and that the 
various human races must be regarded as 
several species entirely independent of each 
other. 

As has already been remarked when treat- 
ing of Biology the most illustrious natural- 



— 300 — 

ists, Cuvier, Linnaeus, Buffon, Humboldt, 
the two Geoffroys and Mliller, however 
much the}^ niay differ on other doctrines, 
all perfectly agree in accepting monogenism. 

Quatrefages says that: " Species is a col- 
lection of individuals more or less resembling 
each other, which may be regarded as having 
descended from a single primitive pair by 
an uninterrupted and natural succession of 
families.'' 

The idea of resemblance, in this defini- 
tion, is made of less importance and sub- 
ordinate to that of filiation. 

The same author defines Variety as: ^^ An 
individual or a number of individuals be- 
longing to the same sexual generation, which 
is distinguished from the other representa- 
tives of the same species by one or several 
exceptional characters.'' 

When the characters peculiar to a variety 
become hereditary, that is, when they are 
transmitted from generations to the descend- 
ants of the first modified individual, a race 
is formed. 

Quatrefages defines the Race to be : ^* A 
number of individuals resembling each 
other, belonging to one species, having re- 
ceived and transmitting, b)^ means of sexual 
generation, the characters of a primitive 
variety." 

It is universally admitted that the White 



-301- 

and the Negro are the extreme types in the 
human series. Polj^genists claim that the 
differences between the White and the 
Negro are too great to allow them to be 
classed in the same species. 

On the contrary, the monogenists seem to 
find very little difificulty in demonstrating 
that the limits of variation in animals and 
plants are almost invariably greater than 
between the White and the Negro, the two 
extreme races of the human kind. 

In vegetables, flowers and fruit-trees the 
limits of variation are very extensive indeed. 
The cabbage numbers forty-seven principal 
races, each being divided into numbers of 
secondary and tertiary ones and all of one 
only species. The distance which separates 
the headed cabbage from the cauliflower is 
immensely greater than that between any 
of the races of man. 

We Vv'ill be forced to the same conclusion 
in regard to animals, too, if we compare 
them with man, organ for organ. 

Color is one of the most striking features 
of the different races of men. Yet melanism 
is more apparent in the many races of ani- 
mals and fowls than in man. The skin of 
the white poodle is white, although black is 
the ordinary color of dog skin. Dogs and 
horses vary from one extreme of color to 
another, and oftentimes assume a white 



— 302 — 

hair on a black skin. Domestic fowls of 
French breed have a white skin ; those of 
Cochin China a shade of yellow ; there are 
black fowls with a black skin ; and the silk 
hen of Japan has a dark skin beneath white 
feathers. Color is not a specific bnt an 
accidental difference and depends on cir- 
cnmscribed and t^ansitory modifications. 
Linnaens remarks on the head of color: 
^^Niminm ne crede colori,'' 

The modifications of the hair and of the 
villosities in general in human races are 
much less marked and extensive than in the 
varieties of animals of the same species. 
All men possess hair, whereas it is well 
known that there are hairless dogs, horses 
and oxen. With mankind hair remains 
hair however the race may vary, whether 
coarse, stiff, fair, black or wooly ; or whether 
the transverse section be circular, oval or 
elliptical. On the contrary the wooly fleece 
of sheep is in some countries replaced by 
short smooth hair, and the hair of the Vvdld 
boar by a sort of coarse w^ool. 

In regard to variation in size it is found 
by actual measurement to be twice as great 
in the horse as in man, three times in the 
sheep and rabbit and four tim.es as great in 
the dog. The stature of the Patagonian to 
that of the members of the Akka tribe is as 
three to two, while the size of the St. Bern- 



— 303 — 

ard to the small spaniel, or of the stately 
greyhound to the beagle, is as five to one. 

The modifications of the head in the vari- 
eties of animals of the same species are 
much greater than in the different races of 
men. There is a greater difference in the 
heads of the wild boar and the domestic pig, 
in the heads of the bull-dog, greyhound and 
spaniel, than in the White and the Papuan. 
The oxen of Buenos Ayres have preserved 
the horns while those of Mexico have lost 
them. 

In regard to a number of anatomical char- 
acters there is a much greater difference 
between races of animals of the same species 
than between the human races. There is 
a rudimentary fifth toe in the hind-paw of 
some races of dogs which disappears in 
others. In some races of pigs a third medial 
toe is developed, while normally this animal 
has two medial toes. 

In some races of dogs, sheep and goats 
the tail is reduced to a short coccyx. 

Such marked anatomical variations as 
these and others that might be named are 
never found in mankind. 

The specific unity of all mankind is not 
only demonstrated on morphological grounds 
or by external resemblance, but still more 
strikingly and conclusively on physiological 
ones. In the crossings between the different 



— 304 — 

races of man, we have a means of determin- 
ing whether the different hnman gronps are 
only races of a single species, or rather 
distinct species. 

When sexual unions take place, in plants 
and animals, between races of the same 
species and between different species, w^e 
have what is called a C7'oss, In the first 
named instance the cross produces a moiigi^el^ 
and in the second a hybrid. The product 
of the union of mongrels is called a mon- 
grel, and of hybrids a hybrid when the cross 
unions are fertile. 

The phenomena presented in the crossing 
of human groups must be compared with 
those witnessed in the crossings of animals 
and plants in relation to the production of 
mongrels and hybrids. If the crossings of 
the human groups have the character of 
hybridism, then as in the case of animals 
and plants, we must conclude that the human 
races are specifically distinct and form many 
human species ; but if, on the contrary, these 
crossings bear the stamp of mongrelism it 
follows that the groups are only races form- 
ing one human species. 

Mongrelism may be natural or artificial. 
Linnaeus was the first to discover the dis- 
tinction of sexes in plants and soon after 
his discovery proved that mongrels could be 
produced in plants as in animals. M. Naudin 



— 305 — 

by a multitude of experiments demonstrated 
the fertility of the crossings between races 
of plants. Isidore Geoffroy of the Paris 
Museum proved that mongrels between the 
different races of sheep, dogs and pigs were 
invariably fertile. Every gardener and 
breeder knows very well that he can without 
dif&culty succeed in breeding races of mon- 
grels that are fertile among themselves. 
AH known facts attest the perfect fertility 
of mongrels. 

Hybrids, on the other hand, or crosses 
between species, exhibit facts of an entirely 
different nature. 

The production of hybrids may be either 
natural or artificial. The former is so rare 
that its reality has been doubted altogether 
by the most eminent naturalists. It is es- 
pecially rare among wild animals, and Isidore 
Geoffroy claims that it is entirely unknown 
among mammalia. It is also unknown 
among fishes. In domestication among the 
order of birds there are a few rare exceptions 
of spontaneous crossings between different 
species. 

The intelligent intervention of man has 
succeeded in a few exceptional cases in pro- 
ducing crossings between a very limited 
number of different species of animals and 
plants. And all experimenters agree that 
when unions have been successful between 

20 



— 306 — 

different species the fertility is immediately 
diminished in immense proportions. 

Buffon and Daubenton succeeded but 
twice in their whole career in producing 
crossings between he-goats and sheep, Ti- 
tires ; and between the ram and the she-goat, 
Musmons, although they made numberless 
experiments. Isidore Geoffroy invariably 
failed in his endeavors to do so. 

It is the conclusion of science that there 
are only two species of mammals, the ass 
and the horse, the crossing of which is 
really fertile. Hj^bridation among animals 
and plants when left to themselves is most 
extremely exceptional. Man has succeeded 
with the greatest difficulty in producing a 
few rare cases of it. 

Again it is an incontestable fact that 
mongrels retain, during an indefinite num- 
ber of generations, the faculty of reproduc- 
ing and transmitting to their descendants 
the mixed character they inherited from 
the first parents, which effected the cross. 
Buffon, the two Geoffroys St. Hilaire and 
Darwin are unanimous on this point and 
have demonstrated its truth by a multitude 
of experiments. 

Breeders and gardeners take advantage 
daily of this property of mongrels to im- 
prove and modify many varieties of animals 
and plants. Several races of a single species 



— 307 — 

will intermix in every degree if in habitual 
contact and left to themselves. This result 
of free intermixing would lead through 
insensible shades to the different primitive 
types. It is in this way that the races of 
our domestic dogs and cats have come into 
existence, which continue perfectly fertile 
notwithstanding numberless crossings of 
every kind. 

Man can with care regulate the crossing 
between two races and obtain a mongrel race. 
This new race becomes settled and consoli- 
dated after a few oscillations between the 
paternal and maternal types. 

However great may be the constancy 
acquired by the new mongrel race as a 
whole, it almost invariably happens that 
some individuals reproduce more or less 
faithfully the characters of one of the types 
originally crossed. This reproduction, in 
individuals, of the characteristics of the 
primitive types is called Atavism, Atavism 
(Ivat. Avus, grandfather), then, is the recur- 
rence of the original type of a species in the 
progeny of its varieties. 

Fertility in the broadest acceptation of 
the term, in animals and plants, between 
themselves and between all the races of the 
same species, is one of the characters of 
mongrels. Atavism sometimes occurs in 
the midst of a race considered to be per- 



— 308 — 

fectty pure, resulting from a single cross- 
ing several generations back; and it attests 
the physiological bond which unites all 
mongrels. 

The law of sterility of species is as firmly 
and absolutely demonstrated in the organic 
world as that of attraction in the sidereal 
world. Should the law of attraction be 
suppressed in the inorganic w^orld, general 
chaos among the heavenly bodies would be 
the result. 

Suppress the law of the sterilit}^ of species 
and in a short period the animal and vege- 
table kingdoms would fall into complete 
disorder. 

M. Godron has shown that in vegetable 
hybridism the physiological equilibrium is 
destroyed at the expense of the organs con- 
ducive to the life of the species in favor of 
those conducive to the life of the individual. 
The leaves and stalks relatively to the flow- 
ers are developed in an exaggerated degree. 
Among animals the case of the mule, the 
most common animal hybrid, is exactly 
similar. The mule is always stronger, 
more robust and hardy than its parents, but 
is always sterile. 

With plants sterility is not absolute 
among all hybrids of the first generation ; 
still although in a very few of these the 
elements which characterize the two sexes 



— 309 — 

remain capable of reproduction, the fertility 
is always however immensely reduced. The 
male is the one generally affected in an en- 
tirely special manner. Two hybrids of the 
first generation uniting together produce 
hybrids of the second generation. Hybrids 
of the second generation are as a rule either 
sterile or there is a spontaneous returning 
to one or other of the parent types. This 
latter is reversion. 

In some extremely rare instances fertility 
continues during a number of generations, 
resulting in the curious phenomenon of 
disordered variation. M. Naudin followed 
one of these hybrids through seven genera- 
tions and discovered that some of the indi- 
viduals of each generation reverted to the 
characters of either of the original parents, 
and that the others resembled neither the 
original parents, nor the h^^brids resulting 
from the crossings, nor was there any re- 
semblance between the plants themselves. 

Thus the crossing of species does not 
produce a race, even where there is a certain 
amount of fertility ; p7^odttcing only a variety 
incapable of transmitting their individual 
characters. 

Hybridism in the animal kingdom pre- 
sents if possible still greater infertilitj^ than 
in the vegetable world. Thus the only two 
species the crossing of which displays any- 



— Slo- 
thing approaching to regular fertility, the 
horse and the ass, merely produce a h3^brid, 
the niule, absolutely devoid of fertility. 

The sterility of the mule was perfectly 
known to Herodotus and Pliny. 

As among plants there seem to be a very 
limited number of animals, particularly 
among birds, not entirely subject to the 
general law of the sterility of hybrids. But 
even here the faculty of reproduction in the 
males is constantly weakened, and habitually 
disappears before the usual age ; the female 
lays more rarely, and the eggs are fewxr in 
number and very often clear. 

By crossing and recrossing in a fixed 
manner the goat and the sheep, hybrids, 
chabins^ are produced which have three 
eighths of the paternal and five-eighths of 
the maternal blood. These chabins can be 
maintained for a few generations but finally 
return like plants to the paternal types by 
reversion. 

The leporides, resulting from a cross 
between the hare and the rabbit, present 
the same phenomenon of disordered varia- 
tions and reversion. 

The Agricultural Society of Paris demon- 
strated that the leporides after a few gener- 
ations reverted entirely to the rabbit type. 

There is a vast and radical difference be- 
tween atavism and reversion. The mongrel 



— 311 — 

which by atavism reassumes the characters 
of one of its paternal ancestors still preserves 
its mixed nature. It is different in the cases 
of reversion displayed by hybrids, for one 
of the two bloods is irrevocably expelled. 

Atavism is characteristic of crossing be- 
tween races and reversion of crossing be- 
tween species. In the case of atavism there 
is a possibility of the offspring of the first 
or second generation reproducing the essen- 
tial traits of its own maternal ancestors. 
Giron de Buzareingues furnishes a striking 
example illustrative of this reproduction. 
He noticed it in a family of dogs, crosses 
between the setter and spaniel. A male of 
this family, to all appearances a setter, 
united with a female of pure setter breed, 
producing spaniels, which fact makes it very 
clear that the spaniel blood had not been 
annihilated, and that the return to the setter 
type was only apparent. 

On the contrary it is well known that 
Titires and Musmons have never in all their 
history had offspring affected by atavism. 
A ram and sheep have never produced a 
kid, nor a male and female goat, a lamb. 

Hybridism among animals has never in 
any degree given rise to a series of indi- 
viduals descended the one from the other, 
and preserving the same characters. 

Hybridism is then occasioned chiefly by 



— 812 — 

man's interference ; is extremely rare ; is 
sterile ; and even when successful gives rise 
to the phenomena of reversion and dis- 
ordered variation; or as Quatrefages re- 
marks: ^*The characters of hybrids are 
Infertility, as a general rule, and, in the 
exceptions, a very limited fertility; series 
suddenly cut short either by infertility, 
by disordered variation, or by reversion 
without atavism. . . . Species is then a 
reality; and science may affirm that from 
all appearances each species has had, as 
point of departure, a single primitive pair.'' 
(Human Species, page 84.) 

Long series of experiments have thus 
clearly marked the distinction between spe- 
cies and races. Are then the human groups 
races or species ? The white man has pene- 
trated to every portion of the habitable 
globe. He has mixed with every human 
kind and mixed races have everywhere 
sprung up in his track. These mixed races 
are most broadly fertile, much more fertile 
than the original races from which they 
sprang. And this fertility depends upon 
no other circumstances than simply upon 
the physical connections existing between 
all men from the lowest of the Negroes to 
the first of the Whites. 

Le Vaillant gives an instance of the great 
fertility of mixed human races: ^^ Hottentot 



— 313 — 

women with husbands of their own race 
have three or four children. With Negroes 
this number is tripled, and it is still further 
increased with Whites.'^ 

Hombron speaking of a long experience 
in Brazil, Chili and Peru, says: ^^I am able 
to state that Unions of Whites with Amer- 
ican women have given the highest average 
of births. Next came the Negro and Ne- 
gress. And thirdly the Negro and the 
American woman. '^ 

Crossings between races could alone pre- 
sent facts of this kind. In crossings between 
species, as previously demonstrated, fertilitj^ 
invariably diminishes in an immense ratio. 
Thus human groups, however different they 
may appear to be, are but races of one and 
the same species and not distinct species, 
for invariably their crossings exhibit the 
characteristic traits of mongrels and never 
in any respect of hybrids. 

It is thus as clearly demonstrated as a 
proposition in geometry can possibly be that 
there is but one human species. This is 
the conclusion of Linnaeus, Bufifon, Cuvier, 
Geofifroy, Miiller and Humboldt. 

Man could not, therefore, have come by 
transmutation from a lower species, as spe- 
cific evolutionists claim, but by a special 
creative act of the Almighty, as the Mosaic 
record declares. 



— 314 — 

Genesis tells us that God created man to 
his own image ; to the image of God he 
created him : male and female he created 
them. Evolutionists deny this declaration 
of scripture, asserting that there was no need 
of a creative act, that the human race came 
in a natural way through an almost indefi- 
nite series of gradations from inert matter 
itself. Evolutionists rely upon Biology and 
Anthropology to establish their theories. 
But both Biology and Anthropology very 
plainly and positively favor the statement 
of Moses. 

The first and fundamental principles of 
Biology teach that animals and plants are 
composed of cells ; that the cell is the mor- 
phological unit of the whole living world ; 
that no cell has arisen otherwise than by 
becoming separated from the protoplasm of 
a pre-existing cell ; that no living cell can 
come from dead matter. 

The most eminent and most careful ex- 
perimenters have demonstrated that abio- 
genesis or spontaneous generation is an 
impossibilit}^ The men^who have done the 
most for the natural sciences are a unit for 
the special creation and permancy of species. 
It is as true as a proposition in geometry 
that there is one only human species. Thus 
link by link Biology and Anthropology have 
woven a firm and glittering chain of irre- 



- 815 — 

fragable argument, showing that it is abso- 
lutely impossible for man to have been 
evolved by transmutation from any inferior 
species, but must have come by a special 
creative act of the Almighty as the great 
Hebrew Prophet records. 



Chapter XIX. 

RESULTS OF ANTHROPOLOGY. (Con.) 

{Man not of Simian Descent.) 

Biology may be said to be divided into 
two great camps concerning the problem of 
man's origin. One camp claims a separate 
creation for man, the other derives him b}^ 
gradual transmutation, development or evo- 
lution from the lower animals. 

Agassiz, who eminently represents the 
first school or creationists, says : ^^ There is 
a manifest progress in the succession of 
beings on the surface of the earth. This 
progress consists in an increasing similarity 
to the living fauna, and, among the verte- 
brates especially, in their increasing resem- 
blance to man. But this connection is not 
the consequence of a direct lineage between 
the faunas of different ages. There is 



— 316 — 

nothing like parental descent connecting 
them. The fishes of the Palaeozoic age are 
in no respect the ancestors of the reptiles of 
the Secondary age, nor does man descend 
from the mammals which preceded him in 
the Tertiary age. The link by which they 
are connected is of a higher and immaterial 
nature ; and their connection is to be sought 
in the view of the Creator himself, whose 
aim in forming the earth, in allowing it to 
undergo the successive changes which geol- 
ogy has pointed out, and in creating suc- 
cessively all the different types of animals 
which have passed away, was to introduce 
man upon the surface of our globe. '^ (Prin- 
ciples of Zoology, pp. 205-6.) 

The Evolutionists or Darwinians maintain 
on the contrary that man has come by suc- 
cessive generations and transmutation from 
the very lowest form of animal life. 

Darwin says : '^ The earliest ancestors of 
man were without doubt once covered with 
hair; both sexes having beards; their ears 
were pointed and capable of movement ; and 
their bodies were provided with a tail having 
the proper muscles. Their limbs and bodies 
were acted on by many muscles, which now 
only occasionally reappear in man, but which 
are still normally present in the quadru- 
mana. The great artery and nerve of the 
humerus ran through a supracondyloid fora- 



— 317 — 

men. At this, or some earlier period, the 
intestine gave forth a much larger diver- 
ticulum or coecum than that now existing. 
The foot, judging from the condition of the 
great toe in the foetus, was then prehen- 
sile, and our progenitors, no doubt, were 
arboreal in their habits, frequenting some 
warm forest-clad land ; the males were pro- 
vided with canine teeth which served as 
formidable weapons.'^ Again, Darwin in 
another place goes on to say: " The Catar- 
hine and Platyrhine monkeys agree in a 
multitude of characters, as is shown by their 
. unquestionably belonging to one and the 
same order. The many characters which 
they possess in common can hardly have 
been independently acquired by so many 
distinct species ; so that these characters 
must have been inherited. But an ancient 
form which possessed many characters com- 
mon to the Catarhine and Platyrhine mon- 
keys, and others in an intermediate condition, 
and some few perhaps distinct from those 
now present in either group, would undoubt- 
edly have been ranked, if seen by a natural- 
ist, as an ape or a monkey. And as man 
under a genealogical point of view belongs 
to the Catarhine or Old World stock, we 
must conclude, however much the conclusion 
may revolt our pride, that our early progen- 



— 318 — 

itors would have been properly thus desig- 
nated. But we must not fall into the error 
of supposing that the early progenitor of 
the whole Simian stock, including man, was 
identical with, or even closely resembled, 
any existing ape or monkey.'' (Descent of 
Man, part i. ch. 6.) 

Darwin and Haeckel regard the monera 
as the first ancestor of all living beings. 
Man has come from the monera by passing 
through twenty-one typical transitory forms. 
Our nearest ancestor is now considered by 
transmutationists to be the tailless catarhine 
apes, such as the gorilla. 

Indeed, evolutionists regard the gorilla as 
on the whole the most anthropomorphous 
ape. It is acknowledged, however, that no 
one of the nov/ living species of apes was 
the immediate ancestor of man. The Orang 
most closel}^ resembles man in respect to 
the structure of the brain ; the Chimpanzee 
in the form of the skull ; the Gorilla, in the 
development of the hands and feet; and the 
Gibbon, in the formation of the chest. 

The most sanguine transmutationists con- 
fess that there is a missing link. Haeckel 
calls this link the pithecoid-man or ape-man. 
This being is purely hypothetical and not 
the slightest vestige of which has ever been 
found. Whereas had it ever really existed 



— 310 — 

it would have left its record in the earth^s 
crust in myriads of fossils. 

Darwin, too, admits the necessity of this 
link between the ape and man. The ape 
and man differ essentially in respect to type. 
Their organs closely correspond term for 
term, but are arranged after a very different 
plan. 

The arrangement of the organs in man 
is such as to essentially constitute him a 
walker^ while in the ape they as forcibly 
necessitate his being a climber, A walking 
animal cannot be descended from a climbing 
one. This alone is proof sufficient that man 
could not come from the ape. 

There is moreover a most striking differ- 
ence between man and the highest apes in 
the general proportions of the body and 
limbs. The greatest difference is noticed in 
the structure, size, weight and convolutions 
of the brain. 

The gorilla's brain-case is smaller, its 
trunk larger, its lower limbs shorter, its 
upper limbs longer proportionately than 
man's. There is truly a vast difference be- 
tween a man's and a gorilla's skull. The 
face in the gorilla, formed chiefly by the 
great jaw-bones, predominates over the cra- 
nium or brain-case, while in man the cranium 
predominates over the face. The gorilla 
which goes on all fours ordinarily, and whose 



— 320 — 

skull is inclined forward, has the occipital 
foramen, through which the spinal cord 
passes, far back behind the center of the 
base of the skull, whereas in man the fora- 
men is placed just behind the center of the 
skull's base. The smallest adult human 
cranium scarcely ever m^easures less than 63 
cubic inches, while the largest gorilla cra- 
nium measures no more than 34^ cubic 
inches. 

It is certain that the difference between 
man and the apes depends, most of all 
things, on the relative size and organization 
of the brain. The brain of the highest 
apes is much less complex in its convolu- 
tions than is man's. The v^eight of a goril- 
la's brain hardly ever exceeds 20 ounces, 
whereas man's scarcely ever weighs less 
than 32 ounces, although the gorilla is very 
much the larger animal of the two. 

There are a multitude of other anatomical 
differences between man and the higher 
apes. Professor Huxley says that: ^' Every 
bone of the gorilla bears a mark by w^hich 
it can be distinguished from the correspond- 
ing human bone, and that, in the present 
state of creation at least, no intermediar}' 
being fills the gap which separates man from 
the troglodyte." 

Pruner Bey, after much research, has 
brought out the fact that there exists almost 



— 321 — 

invariably an inverse order in the develop- 
ment of the principal organs of man and 
the anthropomorphous apes. The experi- 
ments of Welker have led to the same con- 
clusion. Welker found that in man the 
sphenoidal angle diminishes from the time 
of birth, whilst in the ape it is always in- 
creasing. 

The researches of Gratiolet further show 
that in the ape the temporal sphenoidal 
convolutions which form the middle lobe, 
appear and are completed before the anterior 
convolutions which form the frontal lobe. 
In man there is an inverse order, the frontal 
convolutions appear first and those of the 
middle lobe are formed subsequently. How 
can any organized being be a descendant of 
another whose development is in an inverse 
ratio to its own ? So that man cannot be 
considered as descended from any of the 
Simian types. 

It must be remembered that between man 
and the rest of the vertebrata numerous re- 
lations exist, for all the vertebrata of which 
man is a species are constructed upon the 
same fundamental plan. The difference 
between man and the vertebrata depends 
mostly upon the nature of the brain. 

And the most important fact in connection 
with the brain is not its absolute develop- 

21 



ment. It is the relation of this development 
to that of the rest of the bod}'. 

Dnvernoy has made out a table showing 
the proportion of the brain to the rest of 
the body in a number of animals. i\ccord- 
ing to this table the Blue Tit, the Cole Tit 
and the Canary have a much stronger claim 
to be man's ancestors than any Simian race. 

Manj^ sanguine scientists have sought for 
the fossil of the Pithecoid man or missing 
link in Asia, the cradle of the human species, 
but none has ever been found there. The 
slightest traces have never been discovered. 

Others, with Darwin, have placed the fos- 
sils of this missing link beneath the iVtlantic 
Ocean. But this hope has been absolutely 
dissipated. The expedition of the ^Chal- 
lenger,'' sent out by the British government, 
declared in their published reports that no 
such continent as an Atlantis has ever ex- 
isted. Mr. John Murray, whose testimony 
no scientist will dispute, says: ^^He is a 
bold man who still argues that in the tertiary 
times there was a large area of continental 
land in the Pacific, that there was once a 
Lemuria in the Indian Ocean, or a conti- 
nental Atlantis in the Atlantic ! " 

At the same time that intelligence is a 
bond of union between all the races of man, 
showing that they are all of one family, it 
places an enormous gulf between the family 



— 323 — 

of apes and the family of man. Almost 
all scientists acknowledge that intelligence 
shows an immeasurable and practically in- 
finite divergence between man and the lower 
animals. The opinion is deeply rooted in 
modern as in ancient thought, that only a 
distinctively human element of the highest 
import can account for the severance be- 
tween man and the highest animals below 
him. " The distinction does not seem to be 
principally in the range and delicacy of 
direct sensation, as may be judged from 
such well-known facts as man^s inferiority 
to the eagle in sight, or to the dog in scent. 
At the same time, it seems that the human 
sensorj^ organs may have in various respects 
acuteness beyond those of other creatures. 
But, beyond a doubt, man possesses, and in 
some way possesses by virtue of his superior 
brain, a power of co-ordinating the impres- 
sions of his senses, which enables him to 
understand the world he lives in, and by 
understanding, to use, resist, and even in a 
measure rule it. No human art shows the 
nature of this human attribute more clearly 
than does language. Man shares with 
the mammalia and birds the direct expres- 
sion of the feelings by emotional tones and 
interjectional cries; the parrot's power of 
articulate utterance almost equals his own ; 
and, by association of ideas in some measure, 



— 324 — 

some of the lower animals have even learnt 
to recognize words he utters. But, to use 
words in themselves unmeaning, as symbols 
by which to conduct and convey the com- 
plex intellectual processes in which mental 
conceptions are suggested, compared, com- 
bined, and even analyzed, and new ones 
created — this is a faculty which is scarcely 
to be traced in an}- lower animal.'' (E. B. 
Tylor.) 

But what particularly isolate man from 
animals are moral and religious phenomena. 
These belong essentially to the human king- 
dom ; they are the special attributes of the 
human species. There is no human society 
in which the idea of good and evil is not 
represented by certain acts regarded by the 
members of that societ}^ as morally good or 
morally bad. 

Wallace, from his experience among the 
Kurubars and Santals, has found that these 
tribes have a consciousness of moral good 
and truth anterior to experience, and inde- 
pendent of questions of utility. 

The peoples of every nation, however low 
or savage, have a moral sense. Conscien- 
tious travellers tell us that the most inferior 
races have honesty, respect for human life, 
and self-respect. 

The right of tribal property known as the 
hunting-grounds is respected by the Red- 



— 325 — 

skins, the peoples of New Holland, among 
the lowest in the human scale, and by the 
Australians. The peoples of one tribe will 
not enter the hunting-grounds of a neigh- 
boring tribe without express permission. 
Among the most savage peoples theft is 
regarded as something wrong and is pun- 
ished. Among savage peoples, however, it 
is not regarded as a theft to rob an enemy 
or a stranger. It is, on the contrary, con- 
sidered a meritorious act. Savage peoples 
have a great respect for property rights 
among themselves and the thief is punished 
as severely on the Guiana coast as in the 
United States. 

The Australian, uncorrupted by the vicin- 
ity of the White, kills the one who has de- 
stroyed the purity of his wife, and with the 
Hottentots, death is also the punishment for 
adultery. 

Respect for human life is universal among 
the races of man, and the murderer is every- 
where punished. This formula is supposed 
to be more elastic with the Savage than the 
White, and still it is safe to say that no 
human race has so terribly sinned against 
respect for human life as the White race. 

A love of honor is especially characteristic 
of savage races, and nothing is more com- 
mon than to see savages prefer death and 
even torture to shame. 



— 326 — 

Modesty and politeness, marks of self- 
respect, are shown by savages, but in a way 
different from our own. We uncover our 
head before a superior, the Turk remains 
covered and the Polynesian sits down. 

All human groups are not upon the same 
moral level, but every group has the moral 
faculty more or less developed. The uni- 
versality of religion among mankind is now 
all but admitted ; all the groups of man are 
religious. 

All the peoples of the globe profess a 
belief in beings superior to themselves and 
capable of exercising a good or evil influence 
upon man's destiny ; and the conviction that 
man's existence is not limited to the present 
life, but that there remains for him a future 
beyond the grave. 

Travelers, through mistake, want of knowl- 
edge of the language of the people, or pre- 
conceived opinions, have from time to time 
reported that groups of mankind were 
atheistic and without religious belief, but 
this, by reason of superior knowledge, has 
all been corrected. Thus, D'Orbigny saj'S of 
the races of South America: ^^ Although 
several authors have denied all religion to 
certain Americans, it is evident in our opin- 
ion that all the nations, even the most bar- 
barous, possessed one of some kind.'' 

De Mofras tells us that the Californians 



— 327 - 

believed in a superior God and that : '^This 
God has had neither father nor mother. 
His origin is entirely unknown ; they believe 
that He is omnipresent ; that He sees every- 
thing, even in the middle of the darkest 
nights ; that He is invisible to all eyes ; 
that He is the friend of the good, and that 
He punishes the wicked.'' 

According to the testimony of Major 
Michael Symes and Mr. Day, the Mincopies, 
one of the lowest tribes in the social scale, 
worship the sun as the principal god and 
the moon as a secondary god ; and the genii 
of the woods, rivers, and mountains as 
agents of the first divinities. 

Kolben testifies that the Hottentots be- 
lieve in a God, the creator of all things, 
whom they style the God of Gods. They 
regard the moon as an inferior deity. They 
believe in another life and dedicate to the 
ghosts of their great men fields, mountains 
and rivers. 

The Bachapine Kaffirs believe in a supe- 
rior but malevolent being,- whom thej^ call 
Mouliimo. The Basutos admit the existence 
of a being who destroys by thunder, and 
believe in another life to be lived in the 
center of the earth. 

The Australians, the Tahitians, the Ne- 
groes of Guinea and the peoples of Dahomey 
all have their native religions. 



— 328 — 

Nowhere on the earth is found a great 
human race, or a large portion of it, profess- 
ing atheism. The religious faculty is com- 
mon to all human beings ; it is one of the 
fundamental characters of the human spe- 
cies ; it gives a specific kinship to all human 
races and utterly divides them from any 
Simian origin. 

Thus the truest results of Biology and 
Anthropology, instead of contradicting, con- 
firm the Mosaic record. God called man 
into being by a special creative act. The 
whole human family belongs to the one 
same species, and man's Simian descent 
must be abandoned. 



Chapter XX. 

* RESULTS OF ANTHROPOLOGY. (Con.) 
( Origin of Races.) 

The best science, then, may be said to 
have established- the fact that there is but 
one human species branching out into a 
great variety of races ; and that all the races 
of men are specifically identical in anatom- 
ical and physiological qualities ; and in par- 
ticular in intellectual and moral attributes. 

The aim of this chapter is to show that 
the various human races, having one and the 



— 329 — 

same origin and springing from a single 
primitive pair, have received their differen- 
tiations from the mnltiple conditions of life. 
Thns the very best and trnest science nne- 
qnivocably confirms the Mosaic acconnt of 
the descent of man. Acclimatization and 
naturalization have successively determined 
and fixed the different races as mankind 
established themselves in the different coun- 
tries of the globe. 

Anthropologically speaking, it may be 
said to be a very difficult, if not, indeed, an 
insoluble problem to determine the geo- 
graphical position of the center of appear- 
ance of the human species. The solution 
at best can be but approximative. 

Quatrefages places the human cradle in 
that region of Asia bounded on the South 
and South-west by the Himalayas, on the 
West by the Bolor mountains, on the North- 
west by the iVla-Tau, on the North by the 
Altai range and its off-shoots, on the Bast 
by the Kingkhan, on the South and South- 
east by the Felina and Kuen-Iyoun. 

No other portion of the earth presents a 
like union of extreme human types distrib- 
uted around a common center. The three 
great fundamental types of all the human 
races are represented in the peoples grouped 
round this region. The Black, the Yellow 



— 330- 

and the White races all flourish here to- 
gether to-day side by side. 

The three great fundamental forms of 
human language are found in this same 
region. The monosjdlabic languages are 
represented in the Central and South-East 
portion of this territor}^, the agglutinative 
languages in the North-East and North- 
West, and the Inflectional languages in the 
South and South- West. 

Again, naturalists, and particularly Geoff- 
roy and De la Malle, claim that from Asia 
the earliest domesticated animals are derived. 

This great Asiatic enclosure would then 
appear to be the first home of the human 
family. 

Thus far anthropology has taught us that 
there is but one species of man, and that 
the many human groups are races. The 
human species are localized originally in a 
very limited space. Human beings are now 
found the world over and it may be easily 
shown that this peopling of the globe is the 
consequence of migrations. 

The history, traditions and legends of 
both the new and the old world show Migra- 
tions to be universal among men. Palaeon- 
tology and archaeology add their testimony 
to the wandering instincts of man. 

The continued immobility of a single 
human race is contrar}^ to all analogy. 



— 331 — 

As far as land barriers are concerned, none 
of tliem have been entirely insurmountable 
to man's passage. Man has always been 
able to vanquish ferocious animals, to climb 
the highest and most precipitous mountains, 
to traverse deserts and cross rivers. 

Man alone has been able to dispute effect- 
ively the onward march of man. Where 
man did not exist there was no insurmount- 
able barrier, and even when a country had 
been inhabited, a superior invading force 
could not be stopped. 

Neither do the oceans with their adverse 
winds and currents form an altogether im- 
passable barrier to human migrations. Poly- 
nesia, on account of its ocean barriers, is 
regarded as one of the least accessible places 
possible to human migration. Yet from 
the testimony of creditable navigators it 
now seems to be admitted as an established 
fact that a maritime people thoroughly ac- 
quainted with the Malay Archipelago could 
have easily sailed as far as New Guinea. 
From New Guinea an 5^ fairly bold navigator 
could have reached the Fiji Islands, and 
from here Polynesia w^as easilj^ accessible. 

Autochthonists object to this, however, 
the universalit}^ and absolute constancy of 
the trade winds in these regions, w^hich 
would prevent the passage of these seas by 



— 332 — 

any navigator however bold, depending upon 
the crude methods of ancient science. 

We have, however, the testimony of Maury 
and Kerhallet that there are at seasons va- 
riable winds extending over an area of 
twenty degrees of this region. It is now 
known also that the monsoon drives back 
yearly the trade winds and blows beyond the 
Sandwich and Tahiti Islands. 

Thus everything for a part of the year 
would favor navigation eastwardly. More- 
over there runs from east to west in the 
Pacific the great equatorial current. This 
current is found to consist in reality of two 
distinct oceanic streams, one of which, to 
sustain the equilibrium, runs in a contrarj^ 
direction to the other. The one running 
eastwardly skirts the northern portion of 
Polynesia. 

The Pacific as well as other oceans, has 
its typhoons and tempests blowing in all 
directions. This ocean is full of islands 
w^hich must have often been reached and 
made the home of shipwrecked sailors. 

Everything seems to point to the theory 
that Polynesia was peopled by Mala3'S mi- 
grating from west to east. All travelers 
agree that the Poljmesians belong to the 
same race as the Malays and speak the same 
language with slight variations of dialect. 



— 333 — 

Polynesia has an area of greater extent than 
the whole of Asia. 

With regard to the peopling of America 
by migrations from other continents, there 
is very little geographical dif&culty. The 
Asiatic races could have passed into North 
America across Behring Straits without 
much trouble. The narrowness of the chan- 
nel between the continents and the presence 
there of the St. Lawrence Islands would 
greatly facilitate the passage between the 
main lands. 

Again, the Koitro-Sivo or Black-stream of 
the Japanese washes the shores of California 
and must have been a fertile route for navi- 
gators between Asia and America. 

Similarly the Equatorial current of the 
Atlantic furnished an easy route between 
America and Africa. 

*Lyell well says: ^^ Supposing the human 
genus v^^ere to disappear entirely, with the 
exception of a single family, placed either 
upon the Ocean of the New Continent, in 
Australia, or upon some coral island of the 
Pacific Ocean, we may be sure that its de- 
scendants would, in the course of ages, suc- 
ceed in invading the whole earth, although 
they might not have attained a higher 
degree of civilization than the Esquimaux 
or the South Sea Islanders.'^ 

The human species is now universally 



distributed over the globe. It must have 
had the power of becoming acclimatized 
and naturalized in every place in which w^e 
meet with it. Frenchmen can live and thrive 
in Corsica, if they avoid the marshes which 
are fatal to Corsicans themselves. The 
descendants of English and French in the 
United States and Canada are not inferior 
to the first colonists of Europe in America. 

Actual statistics show that the increase of 
French populations in America is in a 
greater ratio than that of the most favored 
European populations. French emigrants 
in the vicinit}^ of the Cape, the Boers, de- 
scendants of the Dutch, in the Transvaal, 
the English in Australia, Europeans in 
Polynesia and the Irish all over the Avorld 
have flourished and greatly multiplied. 

It is a demonstrated fact that the great 
Aryan race, originating most probably in the 
mountain district of Bolor and Hindoo Koh, 
had the faculty of acclimatization under the 
most adverse conditions of existence. Its 
waves of migration have been traced from 
its centre of appearance to Ceylon on the 
one hand and Iceland on the other. Finally 
it gradually distributed its colonies over the 
whole world. What is true in this respect 
of the Aryan race is also true of the Negro 
and Yellow races. In every region of the 
globe the Black lives side by side with the 



White, and Coolies are found in America, 
Africa and Europe. Gipsies have overrun 
the whole of Europe, and the Jews are well 
known to be cosmopolitan. 

It is not claimed that any race can become 
imniediatel}^ acclimatized in any given local- 
ty. Frequently acclimatization follows onh^ 
after great lapse of time and great losses of 
individuals. And there are places w^here no 
races can live, such as in the estuary of the 
Gaboon, the Maremma, and the marshes of 
Corsica. As Ouatrefages well remarks : 
^^The conditions of acclimatization vary 
with the race ; that the same climate cannot 
exercise the same kind of action upon differ- 
ent races, and that complete acclimatization, 
that is to say, naturalizatio7i^ can only follow 
upon the harmony of these two terms — race 
and conditions of life." (The Human Spe- 
cies, page 223.) 

Many deny the possibility of the accli- 
matization of human races, claiming that 
people simply become accustomed to a given 
place. Now man in common with all or- 
ganized beings is subject to all the general 
laws which govern organized life in animals 
and plants. It can be easily shown that in 
animals and plants the phenomena of accli- 
matization is quite common ; that the organ- 
ization is sometimes modified in its most 



— 386 — 

intimate relations, so as to conform to the 
exigencies of inflexible conditions of life. 

The Chrysanthemum, which is now accli- 
matized in this coimtry and Europe, came 
originally from China. It required 60 years 
of cultivation to acclimatize this flower in 
France alone. 

The Egyptian goose was brought to 
France by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1801. 
This species of fowl lays in December in 
its native country. For several years the 
fowl imported into France continued to lay 
in December and reared its brood in winter. 
In 1844 the birds laid in February, in 1845 
in March, and in 1846 in April, the period 
at which the common goose lays. 

Nearly all the domestic races of animals 
found in Europe, have been imported into 
America and are prospering here. . 

Acclimatization, or physiological adapta- 
tion to new conditions of life, is an incon- 
testable fact. In its accomplishment there 
will be sacrifices proportionate to the differ- 
ences, as regards conditions of existence, 
between the two countries, and the loss of 
individuals and even of generations. 

The French have become acclimatized in 
Algeria after immense sacrifices and the 
lapse of years of struggles. After still 
greater sacrifices, Europeans have become 
acclimatized in Martinique and Guadeloupe. 



— 337 — 

The Negro race after great struggles has 
become acclimatized in the English x\ntilles 
and in Brazil. 

The constant migrations of mankind, 
assisted by crossings and the actions of 
climates, have effaced the primitive type of 
the human species. 

We know that atavism in the animal 
kingdom has often caused the reappearance 
of ancestral characters. It is thought by 
anthropologists that some characteristics of 
our first ancestors ought to appear off and on 
through the effect of atavism in the human 
races collectively. A few characteristics 
that appear at intervals in all the races of 
man are conjectured to have belonged to the 
primitive type. Prognathism of the upper 
jaw, red hair, and yellow skin most probably 
were characteristics of the original race of 
man. 

We now find mankind divided up into 
many groups forming distinct races. Let 
us then consider how these races have 
originated or sprung from the primitive 
type. And let us first see how the principal 
races are distinguished among themselves. 

Color has alwaj^s been regarded as a very 
distinctive race mark. Dr. Broca has given 
a graduated scale of race colors, now con- 
sidered a standard, ranging from the fairest 

22 



— 338 — 

hue of the Swede to the brown-black of the 
West African. 

The kind of hair is another race character. 
The straight hair of the American and Ma- 
lay; the wavy hair of the European and 
kinky or frizzed hair of the Negro are now 
known to be due to difference in the struct- 
ure of the hair. The microscope shows 
straight hair to have circular sections, and 
wavy and kinky hair to have more or less 
symmetrically elliptical or oval sections. 

Stature is also a mark of race from the 
tall Patagonian to the dwarfish Fuegian. 

The structure of the skull is another im- 
portant race peculiarity. Skulls are classed : 
dolichocephalic or long, brachycephalic or 
broad, and mecocephalic or intermediate. 
Viewing the skull from above and assuming 
the diameter from front to back as loo, if 
the cross diameter from side to side falls 
below 80, the skull is classed as long ; if on 
the contrary it exceeds 80, the skull is 
classed as broad ; while skulls with a pro- 
portionate breadth of 75 to 80 are known as 
intermediate. This percentage of the skull's 
breadth to its length is called the cephalic 
index. 

The position of the jaws is also regarded 
as typical of race. A race is said to be 
prognathous when the jaws project con- 



— 339 — 

vsiderably, and orthognathous when the pro- 
jection is slight, as in the European. 

The celebrated '' facial angle'' of Camper 
depends on this distinction. 

The capacit}^ of the cranium is also taken 
as a test of race. 

The contour of the face and the general 
cast of features are looked upon, at least 
popularly, and correctly too, as typical char- 
acteristics of race. The snub nose of the 
Kerghis, the broad ear of the Kalmuk, the 
pointed chin of the Arab and the almond 
eye of the Chinaman are well recognized 
marks of race. 

But these race distinctions are not fixed 
and permanent, partly because of the mix- 
ture and crossing of races and partty because 
of independent variation of types, or as 
Blumenbach remarks : " That innumerable 
varieties of mankind run into one another 
by insensible degrees.'' It would be then 
a hopeless task to attempt to arrange the 
whole human species within exactly bounded 
divisions. There are, however, several defi- 
nite types of mankind that may be taken as 
standard types. There are several plans of 
defining such types. Quetelet's method is 
that of selecting as the standard the most 
numerous group, on both sides of which the 
groups decrease in number as they vary in 
type. It is possible in this way by inspec- 



— 340 — 

tion of considerable numbers of individuals 
to define tlie prevalent type of a race with 
tolerable approximation to the real mean or 
standard man of the race. 

Blumenbach reckons five races or standard 
divisions : Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethio- 
pian, American and Malay. Cuvier has 
reduced the divisions to three : Caucasian, 
Mongol and Negro. 

Professor Huxley divides the species into 
five types : The Australioid, Negroid, Mon- 
goloid, Xanthochroic and Melanochroic. 

The Australioids have chocolate skin, 
black wavy hair, dolichocephalic skull and 
projecting jaw. The Negroid has brown- 
black skin, black woolly hair, dolichocephalic 
skull and projecting jaw. The Mongoloids 
have yellowish brown skin, black straight 
hair, brachycephalic skull and oblique e^^es. 
The Xanthochrois have colorless skin, from 
straw to chestnut colored hair and skull 
varying in proportions. Melanochrois have 
olive skin, black hair, skull of varying pro- 
portions, light frame and low stature. 

The circumstances under which varieties 
and races among the lower animals and 
plants originated are well-known. The oc- 
currence of a number of phenomena in man 
similar to those exhibited by the inferior 
kingdoms and forming distinct varieties 
of the same species has been established. 



— 341 — 

Judging by analogy, we have clearly the 
riofht to infer that what was sufficient to 
occasion a variety among the lower animal 
species should also be sufficient to produce 
a variety or race in the human family. 

There seem to be two forces acting on the 
human species as on all organic species, one 
force constantly tending to maintain the 
types, w^hich is known as he7^edity^ and the 
other force tending to diversify the typical 
characters, which may be called the con- 
ditions of life. 

By reason of the force of heredity, the 
father and m^other tend equall}^ to transmit 
their own character to their offspring. 
However similar parents may seem to be 
there is certainly always some difference 
between them and the nature of the offspring 
will of necessity be a compromise between 
two characters. The traits common to both 
parents will be exaggerated in the offspring, 
and the different characters will produce a 
resultant distinct from the two components. 
Thus in a measnre hereditj^ itself is directly 
the cause of variation. And this force of 
heredity in producing varieties is greatl}^ 
aided and influenced by the conditions of 
life. The conditions of life in the widest 
sense embrace all the conditions under whose 
influence a man, animal or plant is formed 
and grows as germ, embryo, youth and 



— 342 — 

adult. Among the conditions of life affect- 
ing the formation of human races are in- 
cluded soil, cold, heat, humidity, dryness, 
light, food, drink, plenty, penury, morality, 
human crossings, intellect, mixture of be- 
liefs, customs and manners. 

Thus naturalists have shown that mon- 
strosity dates from the earliest stages of the 
formation of the being and indicates frequent- 
ly the external causes that have produced it. 

By the mixing of madder with the food 
of a female mammal, a red color is produced 
in the bones of the foetus ; and by placing 
the eggs of a salmon-trout in waters which 
only nourish wdiite-trout, the eggs become 
gradually paler and produce trout which 
have lost the characteristic color of their 
race. 

Thus certain conditions of life strongly 
affect organism in the embr3^onic state. But 
the conditions of life almost equalty influ- 
ence the animal when full-grown. Euro- 
pean sheep when transported to the plains 
of Meta are greatly influenced and changed 
by the new conditions of life. The fleece is 
only retained when the sheep are regularl}^ 
shorn. When left to themselves the wool 
becomes felty, is detached in flakes and re- 
placed b}^ a short, stiff and shining hair. 
Thus the same individual sheep under the 



— 343 — 

influence of this burning climate becomes 
in turn a woolly and a hair}^ animal. 

Heredity and conditions of life give rise 
to variety. The individual that has devi- 
ated from the original type in turn becomes 
a parent and tends to transmit its excep- 
tional characters to its own offspring. 
These facts are repeated from offspring to 
offspring, and at each generation the results 
of the conditions of life are added to each 
other. Thus a small deviation at first 
grows and grows until the change becomes 
quite marked. Pigs, for example, which 
have become wild in the Paramos, have ac- 
quired a kind of w^ool under the action of a 
mild continuous cold. 

European oxen gradually lose their hair 
on the hot plains of Mariquita, and there is 
a marked contrast between the Guinea and 
Esquimaux dog. 

In short, organisms are modified in order 
to put them in harmony with the conditions 
of life. But when once the greatest possible 
effect has been attained under the new con- 
ditions of life, the further action of these 
conditions can but more fully fix the result 
obtained and can never produce a change in 
the opposite direction. The heat that has 
deprived cattle of their hair can never again 
restore it, and the cold that has made pigs 
woolly will never deprive them of the wool. 



— 344 — 

Thus conditions of life having once pro- 
duced a race will afterwards cause its per- 
manency and stability. 

In the human species the extreme varia- 
tions seen in domesticated animal species 
are never found because man in his own 
case does not make use of selection or culti- 
vation as he does with domestic animals. 
The limits of variation are then not as ex- 
tensive in man as in the domestic animals. 

But if selection were applied to man 
himself the result w^ould soon be evident. 
Thus races really distinguished for their 
great stature were produced in Prussia and 
Alsace by marrying the tallest women to 
the tallest men. 

Although the conditions of life do not 
play as strong a part in the human family 
as among domesticated animals, yet their 
action is none the less real. This is strik- 
ingly verified in the great western colonies. 
Bvery race is represented by derived sub- 
races w^hich vary according to the locality. 

North and South America, Australia and 
the islands of the Gulf of Mexico have their 
own peculiar derived races, each remarkably 
characterized. 

After twelve generations the Yankee in 
the United States no longer resembles his 
ancestors. At the second generation the 
English Creole in North America, presents 



i 



— 345 — 

in his features, an alteration which approxi- 
mates him to the native races. 

Thus when subject to the action of the 
conditions of life which have formed the 
local races, the emigrant races could not 
help being influenced by it to a great extent, 
still they will never be confused with the 
local races or with each other any more than 
the White transported into Africa would 
ever become a true Negro, or the European 
descendants of a Negro ever become true 
Whites. This is because ever\' race is a 
resultant whose components are, partl}^ the 
species itself, and partly the sum of the 
modifying agents which have produced the 
deviation from the primitive type. 

Every race which is fixed, when brought 
under the conditions of life which have 
formed another race, Vv411 approximate to 
the latter ; but will partly retain its former 
impress. 

Human races or varieties are formed b}' 
heredity and conditions of life. The con- 
ditions of life act as the supreme ruler. 
Heredity, which is essentiall}^ a conserving 
element, becomes an agent of variation, 
when it transmits and accumulates the 
modifying actions of the conditions of life. 

Man having spread from his centre of 
appearance into all the parts of the globe, 
and encountering all manner of climates 



— 346 — 

and all conditions of life, could not have 
always remained the same. It was utterly 
impossible that he should retain everywhere 
and for all time his original characters. 
The human family was divided up into 
races, all of which differ from the first model, 
but all retaining the essential characters 
that show them to belong to the one only 
human species. 



Chapter XXI. 

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. 

It is frequently claimed that there is a 
contradiction between science and Genesis 
regarding the antiquity of the human fam- 
ily. A thorough sifting of facts will, how- 
ever, show this claim to be unfounded and 
the contradiction apparent rather than real. 

Genesis does not pretend to give any 
exact figures for the age of the human race, 
and science only claims to be able to offer 
a broad guess at the time of man's first ap- 
pearance on the earth. 

The Sacred Text merely supplies the 
material for a system of Biblical chronology, 
but has no established one of its own. Thus 
the Sacred Books must not be held respon- 
sible for the many systems of chronolog}^ 



which various authors have formed upon 
the basis of data furnished by them. 

All records agree that man^s first appear- 
ance on our globe compared with that of 
vegetables and animals is indeed quite 
recent. 

The science of chronology is of compara- 
tively recent date. It was a task of ver}^ 
great difficulty with the ancients to deter- 
mine the length of time intervening between 
distant historical events even when they had 
begun to use the astronomical units of 
measurement. And in still more remote 
antiquity, when they had to rely for their 
dates on the enumeration of generations, the 
dif&culty was much enhanced and the result 
very vague and uncertain. The data afford- 
ed by the Bible as the basis of a chronolog}^ 
consist altogether in the numbering of gen- 
erations. Commentators using this Biblical 
material were thus led to differ very widely 
with regard to man's antiquity. Usher's 
estimate, placing man's age at 4004 B. C. 
became so popular that it was looked upon 
for a long time as a classic number similarly 
to Enke's calculation of ninety-five million 
for the sun's distance. 

It is very well known that ancient authors 
of all kinds attached but little importance 
to exactness in the matter of dates. They 
often put down positivel}^ what thej^ knew 



— 348 — 

only by approximation, wishing to give 
round numbers. It seldom happens that 
profane historians or even the Scriptures 
give the halves or any fractions of the year. 
This gives rise to the supposition that they 
frequently left years behind unconnected or 
put down more than they should, and so, 
in the matter of ancient chronology, it is 
impossible to arrive at anything like perfect 
precision. 

The Bible has no chronology of its own 
as already stated, it only gives certain data 
from which different commentators have 
formed different chronologies. The age of 
the human race is nowhere explicitly men- 
tioned in Scripture and even the data fur- 
nished by the Sacred Text from which is 
computed the length of time from man\s 
creation to the Birth of Christ are somewhat 
obscure and uncertain. 

For the sake of convenience, the entire 
period from Adam to Our Lord is divided 
into two parts ; from the creation of Adam 
to the Call of Abraham ; and from the Call 
of Abraham to the Birth of Christ. There is 
very little dispute about the second division, 
as almost all the chronologies substantially 
agree in fixing the latter interval at 2000 
years. 

Different readings of the earliest versions 
of the Pentateuch, however, have led to 



-349- 

widely different computations regarding the 
length of the former interval. The data 
for the computation are derived from the 
two genealogical lists of the patriarchs from 
Adam to Noe and from Noe to Abraham. 
In Genesis (Vulgate) (v. 3-32) we read: 
^^And Adam lived a hundred and thirty 
years, and begot a son to his own image 
and likeness, and called his name Seth. 

Seth also lived a hundred and five years 
and begot Enos. 

And Enos lived ninety years, and begot 
Cainan. 

And Cainan lived seventy years, and 
begot Malaleel. 

And Malaleel lived sixty-five years, and 
begot Jared. 

And Jared lived a hundred and sixty-two 
3^ears, and begot Henoch. 

And Henoch lived sixty-five years, and 
begot Mathusala. 

And Mathusala lived a hundred and 
eighty-seven years, and begot Lamech. 

And Lamech lived a hundred and eighty- 
two years, and begot a son. And he called 
his name Noe. 

And Noe, when he was five hundred years 
old, begot Sem, Cham and Japheth. 

And in Genesis (Vulgate) (xi. 10-26) : 
^^ These are the generations of Sem: Sem 



— 350 — 

was a hundred years old when he begot 
Arphaxad, two years after the flood. 

And Arphaxad lived thirty-five years, and 
begot Sale. 

Sale also lived thirty years, and begot 
Heber. 

And Heber lived thirty-four years, and 
begot Phaleg. 

Phaleg also lived thirty years, and begot 
Reu. 

And Reu lived thirty-two years, and begot 
Sarug. 

And Sarug lived thirty years, and begot 
Nachor. 

And Nachor lived nine and twenty years, 
and begot Thare. 

And Thare lived seventy years, and begot 
Abrani, and Nachor, and Aran.'^ 

Here we have the age of each individual 
member of the genealogy at the time when 
the next in succession was born. Thus we 
find that from Adam^s creation to the birth 
of Seth a hundred and thirty years inter- 
vened and from the birth of Seth to that of 
Enos a hundred and five years and so on. 

Adding seventy-five years to the time 
computed through these genealogies from 
the creation of Adam to the birth of Abra- 
ham, we have the whole time to Abraham's 
Call ; because Genesis (xii. 4) says that 



— 351 — 

^^ Abraham was seventy and five years old 
when he went forth from Haran." 

The three earliest versions of the Penta- 
teuch are the Hebrew, the Samaritan and 
the Septuagint, and each one of them widely 
differs from the others in its estimate of the 
age of the human family. Between the 
estimate made from the Septuagint and the 
Hebrew, there is a discrepancy of about 
1500 years. 

Many reasons are given for the discrep- 
ancies between the figures found in the 
three versions. Some are supposed to be 
due to copyists and others to design. But 
no explanation yet suggested is entirely 
satisfactory. Many copyists had disciples 
who greatly revered them and so finding 
their notes and figures in the margins, when 
recopying, placed them through reverence 
in the body of the text. 

It is well known that when a long list of 
names and numbers are copied and recopied 
thousands of times from age to age, errors 
are certain to creep in and be perpetuated. 

It is now impossible to decide which of 
the versions has the best claim to our ac- 
ceptance. Each of them has powerful apolo- 
gists and redoubtable champions, the weight 
of most eminent authority would seem, how- 
ever, to favor the figures of the Septuagint. 

The Church herself pronounces nothing 



352 — 



Upon the subject, leaving it freely open to 
the arguments of theologians, and commen- 
tators, — the precise antiquity of the human 
race not being considered a matter of faith. 
These different computations based on 
the versions of the Pentateuch, place the 
age of the human family between four and 
six thousand years from the creation of man 
to the Birth of Christ. Adding to this 
estimate the sum of 1898 years, the compu- 
tation of man's age according to Biblical 
material would be between six and eight 
thousand years. 



GENEALOGICAL TABLE OF GENESIS. 



Patriarchs. 



Adam 

Seth 

Enos 

Cainan 

Malaleel 

Jared 

Henoch 

Mathusala . . 

Lamech . . . 

Noe 

Sein (to Birth of Arphaxad two years aftei 
the Deluge.) 



Arphaxad 

Cainan 

Sale 

Heber 

Phaleg 

Reu 

Sarug 

Nachor 

Thare 

Abraham's Call 

Total from Creation of Adam to Abraham's 
Vocation 



Age of Each When Son Was 
Born According to 



Samaritan Hebrew Septuagint 
Text. Text. Text. 



130 
105 
90 
70 
65 
62 
65 
67 
53 
500 



35 



130 

134 
130 
132 
130 

79 
70 

75 



1015 
2322 



130 
105 
90 
70 

65 
162 

65 
187 



1656 



35 



30 
34 
30 
32 
30 
29 
70 
75 



365 
2021 



230 
205 
190 
170 
165 
162 
165 
167 



100 
2242 



135 
130 
130 

134 
130 
132 
130 

79 
70 

75 



1145 
3387 



i 



— 353- 

St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Thomas 
were of the opinion that no exact length of 
time for man^s age on the earth could be 
gathered from Biblical sources. 

St. Paul himself recognized the difficul- 
ties surrounding scriptural chronology when 
he gave this counsel : ^^ Not to give heed to 
fables, and endless genealogies, which fur- 
nish questions rather than the edification 
of God.'' 

And the gravest, most learned and most 
reputable authors claim that chronological 
uncertaint}^ attaches to all ancient history 
as well sacred as profane. Calniet, Julius 
Africanus, Isaac Vossius and M. Simon were 
of this opinion. 

Pagi likewise admits the uncertaint}^ of 
chronological accuracy, as do also Molloy, 
Brucker and Bishop Meignan, all declaring 
that some generations may have been omit- 
ted by the copjdst and some by the sacred 
writer. 

In Josephus, the years of the Judges and 
the periods of servitude that happened in 
their time are not continuous and immedi- 
ately consecutive, having been interrupted 
by anarchies which preceded the servitudes 
of the Israelites. 

The periods of the captivities and an- 
archies are omitted in the Sacred Text, being 
looked upon as dead spaces, 

23 



— 354 — 

It would seem very certain that in the 
Sacred Scriptures the genealogies are not 
always immediately consecutive. A re- 
trenchment of this kind occurs in i Esdras 
(vii. 3) where six generations are entirely 
omitted, and in St. Mathew six persons are 
wanting to the genealogy of Our Lord.* 

Prichard, in his " Researches into the 
Physical History of Mankind'^ (vol. v.) 
says: ^^It is obvious that all these sets of 
dates except one must be wrong ; and we 
may consider it as almost certain that the 
discrepancies have been introduced by mis- 
take, and that the original expressions de- 
noting numbers were not understood. This 
can be imagined on one hypothesis, viz : 
That the most ancient copies of Genesis, or 
at least of these particular documents, con- 
tained in the several sections, not the sums 
of years expressed in words, but some num- 
erical marks, the real force of which had 
been lost in the lapse of time, and through 
various accidents, and that attempts were 
made at later but different times, and by 
various persons, to convert the numbers 
marked down by numerical signs into 

words It may be supposed that the 

scribes who originally translated numerical 

■"'"There are also slight genealogical omissions in the 
tables of Ruth, I and II Paralipomenon, Mathew and Luke, 
the Pentateuch and 3rd and 4th Kings. 



600 — 



signs into numbers expressed by words in 
the tables of Patriarchs, adopted some erro- 
neous principle of interpretation, which 
greatl}^ augmented the numbers originally 
denoted by those signs. '^ 

Concerning the difficulties of forming an 
exact Chronology, Calmet remarks as fol- 
lows : "^ Some nations have made their years 
of one month, others of four, others of six. 
Some have made one year of the summer 
and another of the winter ; some have made 
their year of ten months, others of twelve. 
Historians, and we may say the same of 
transcribers and translators, have often con- 
founded all these years, and without re- 
marking the difference of the years of the 
nations they were speaking of from those 
in usage in their own country, they have 
fixed the times by equivocal marks, and thus 
introduced confusion into chronology and 
historJ^'' 

Lenormant says in his Ancient History 
(page 122): ^^We are convinced that relig- 
ious truth is far from being tied to questions 
of literature or of chronology. Christian 
faith no more reposes upon the chronolog}^ 
of Genesis, than upon its physics and its 
astronomy." 

And there are m.any eminent orthodox 
commentators of this same opinion of Lenor- 
mant, that inspiration does not extend to 



— 356 — 

matters not essentially or influentially con- 
nected with religious truth, and so claim 
that some of these chronological inaccuracies 
originated with the sacred authors them- 
selves. There really seems to be no means 
left for ascertaining the real age of man in 
the world. The ancient Hebrews seemed 
to be of this same opinion, since the Script- 
ural writers have always avoided any attempt 
to compute it. 

Thus the Old Testament really contains 
no reliable material upon which a thorough- 
ly accurate chronology of man's age can be 
established. Genealogical lists of genera- 
tion after generation have been passed by 
without mention. The lapses have been 
detected from other parts of the record. It 
may be fairly supposed that other omissions 
have occurred which commentators have 
been unable to detect, particularly in the 
earlier aud more meagre portions of Holy 
Writ. 

These lapses may have been very great 
for all we know to the contrary. Chronolo- 
gists have always confessed to a great con- 
fusion in the numbers given in the Sacred 
Books. It would seem under the circum- 
stances that from Biblical data we can safely 
place man's age upon the planet at from 
eight to ten thousand years. 



— 357 — 
Chapter XXII. 

ANTIQUITY OF MAN. (Con.) 

Science suggests, rather than offers a 
means of calculating, a higher antiquity for 
man than is allowed by Biblical chronolo- 
gists. Leaving out of the question zealots 
and charlatans, reputable scientists claim for 
man's antiquity all the way from ten thou- 
sand to one hundred thousand years. Le 
Conte in his Geology (page 390) says : ^'The 
amount of time which has elapsed since 
man first appeared is still doubtful. Some 
estimate it at more than a hundred thou- 
sand 3^ears — some only ten thousand.'' 

The claims of science for man's great age 
are founded on the finding of suspected 
fossils of the human species in the deposits 
of the Quaternary Period, particularly the 
Champlain epoch, in company with the 
bones of the Rhinoceros, the old Elephant, 
the Cave Hyena, the Cave Bear and other 
extinct species of animals ; from ancient 
monuments ; Hieroglyfics ; Lake-Dwellings ; 
and Archaeology. 

It is practically acknowledged b\^ geolo- 
gists universal^ that there is no satisfactory 
evidence of man's existence previous to the 
Champlain epoch. The Quaternary Period 
is divided into the Glacial, Champlain and 



— 358 — 

Terrace Epochs. The Quaternary Period 
in Geology immediately succeeds the Ter- 
tiary and is the last preceding and prepara- 
tory to the present Period. 

The whole history of the Earth geologic- 
ally is divided into five great eras : The 
Eozoic, Palaeozoic, Mesozoic, Cenozoic and 
Psychozoic, each having its own rock sys- 
tem. 

The Eras are subdivided into Periods and 
the Periods into Epochs. 

The Cenozoic era and Mammalian age is 
divided into two periods — the Tertiary and 
Quaternary. 

Of all the periods the Quaternary has 
been most remarkable for the wide-spread 
great up and down or vertical movements 
and convulsions of the earth's crust in the 
higher latitudes, north and south. Its 
striking characteristic was great changes in 
climate and species. Mammals culminated 
in this Period, it was the great Mammalian 
age. 

The Glacial Period was marked by an 
upward movement of land in high latitudes 
to a height of looo or 2000 feet above the 
present level, followed by vigorous cold. 

The Cliamplain epoch was noted for a 
sinking down of the region raised in the 
Glacial epoch to a depth of from 500 to 1000 
feet. Owing to a moderation of tempera- 



— 359 — 

ture and a melting of ice, it became a flooded 
epoch, when loosened icebergs floated over 
the flooded seas. 

The Terrace epoch was one of upheavals 
when the earth's crust was raised to its 
present level. Probably the most marked 
effects of the land sinking process during 
the Champlain Period are witnessed on the 
shores of Lake Champlain, where evidences 
are found of the regions in the neighborhood 
of the Lake having been raised since that 
period from 400 to 500 feet. 

At this height above the waters of the 
Lake have been found marine shells and the 
skeleton of a whale. Hence the Lake has 
given its name to the Period. 

A small number of human skeletons have 
been found in Europe, which have been 
claimed by scientists to belong to Quater- 
narj^ man of the Champlain Period. All 
anthropologists agree that human remains 
have been found in surprisingly small 
numbers. 

The most famous human skeleton and 
one of the oldest ever found, is that of Men- 
tone. It was discovered by M. Riviere in 
a cave at Mentone, just east of Nice, and is 
now in the Anthropological Gallery of the 
Paris Museum. The skeleton is that of an 
old man, six feet high, with a long large 
head, high and well formed forehead and a 



-3G0 — 

quite large facial (85°) angle. The skeleton 
when found was in a nearly perfect state, 
lying on its side in an easy position seem- 
ingly, surrounded by shells, chipped imple- 
ments, pierced reindeer's teeth and bones of 
extinct animals. A crust of stalagmite 
covered the whole and preserved them all 
perfectly. 

Another remarkable skeleton, closely re- 
sembling the one of Mentone, is that ob- 
tained from the Cave of Cro-Magnon, in 
Perigord, France. This skeleton is five 
feet eleven inches in height. In 1867, M. 
Emile Martin discovered the skeleton of a 
man, five feet ten inches in height, in gravel 
pits opened at Crenelle in the neighborhood 
of Paris. 

Schmerling, in 1833, discovered near 
Liege, Belgium, remains of a smaller and 
less perfect race of men. 

Other portions of human skeletons were 
discovered at Canstadt, Diisseldorf, in the 
caves of Furfooz in Belgium and La Fru- 
chere. These men whose remains have been 
discovered strongly resemble the men of 
the present day, all having had a fair aver- 
age human skull and of good Caucasian 
type. Anthropologists generally refer these 
races to Champlain times. 

Besides these skeletons many relics of 
antique races, such as implements, utensils, 



-301 — 

ornaments in compan}^ with the bones of 
extinct animals have been found. This 
subject of " Finds'^ belongs to the province 
of Archaeology, and archaeologists have di- 
vided human history into three ages, the 
Stone, Bronze and Iron ages. 

They subdivided the stone age into the 
Palaeolithic and Neolithic, the older and 
newer stone age. The older stone age is 
placed contemporary with the Champlain 
Period. 

As the Finds of the older stone are the 
most ancient traces of man it is only neces- 
sary to consider them in the search for the 
probable time of the first appearance on 
earth of our species. The Finds of the 
Palaeolithic stone age are classed under the 
heads of chipped flints, arrow heads and 
various stone implements of the almond- 
shaped type ; pointed flints wrought on one 
side, of the Moustier type ; thin and narrow 
tongue-shaped flakes or knives, having one 
of the ends chipped to a point and used as 
scrapers ; fossil shells of globular form 
pierced through the middle and thought to 
have been used as ornaments. 

The chief places in which these articles 
have been discovered are the caves and 
grottoes of Murignac, Vergisson, Sainte- 
Reine, Arcy, Vallieres, La Chaise, Moustier, 
i\riege, in France; Brixham, Gower, Kirk- 



— 362 — 

dale and Wells, in England ; Cliiampo, 
Lagilio, Palermo, San Giro and Macagnone, 
in Italy and Sicily ; Liege, Engihoul, Engis 
and Nanlette, in Belginm. 

It is almost impossible to gnard against 
fraud in these Finds. The natural color of 
these worked flints belonging to the earliest 
epoch of man's existence is white on one 
side and brown on the other. These Finds 
may all be referred back to the Champlain 
Period. 

Lake Dwellings are collections of houses 
with low sloping roofs perched on lofty 
piles sunk deeply in lake bottoms near the 
shores, and connected with each other by 
bridges of planks. The houses seem to be 
all constructed on the same plan and consist 
of two apartments ; the split stems of trees 
covered with mats form the floor. The 
houses are reached from the shore by means 
of rude canoes. From the canoes the ascent 
is made into the houses by means of ladders 
made of notched tree trunks. 

Villages of such dwellings are common in 
the Gulf of Maracaibo, in the estuaries of 
the Amazon and Orinoco, in New Guinea, 
Lake Mohrya, in Central Africa, in Borneo, 
Celebes, Caroline Islands and many other 
places. 

These dwellings are a safe protection 



— 363 — 

against great inundations and a sudden 
attack of an enemy. 

Archaeological researches have unearthed 
the ruins of numbers of pre-historic lake 
dwellings. Switzerland furnishes the great- 
est number of these pre-historic finds. Rel- 
ics of the Lake Dwellers have been discov- 
ered in almost every lake in Switzerland, in 
lakes Zurich, Constance, Geneva, Bienne, 
Neufchatel, Morat, Moosseedorf and several 
others. 

Vast quantities of implements of horn, 
bone, stone, bronze and potter}^ have been 
found among the ruins, together with a few 
of gold, wood and iron. The bones of ex- 
tinct animals have been discovered mingled 
with the other relics and in a very few cases 
portions of the human skeleton. 

Remains of Lake Dwellings under the 
name of Crannoges have been found in 
Ireland and Scotland. 

Various estimates of the age of these lake- 
dwellings have been attempted but they are 
so largely the result of conjecture, that the}^ 
have little scientific value, if indeed any at 
all. The oldest lake dwellings are thought 
to be those of Lake Moosseedorf, near Bern, 
and the most recent, those of Ireland. 

The implements found in these ruins of 
Moosseedorf are ax-heads of stone, a flint 
saw with fir-wood handle, flint flakes and 



— 364 — 

arrow heads; harpoons of stages horn, awls, 
needles, chisels, fish-hooks of bone, a comb 
of yew wood; roughly made vessels of pottery, 
evidently used in cooking; wheat, barley, lin- 
seed, — several varieties of seeds and fruits ; 
bones of the stag, the ox, the swine, the 
sheep and the goat ; relics of the beaver, the 
fox, the hare, the dog, the boar, the horse, 
the elk and the bison. 

When Lake Lagore, near Dunshaughlin, 
Ireland, was drained in 1839, what appeared 
as an island was discovered to be a crannoge 
from which 150 cart loads of bones were 
taken. The bones of horses, asses, deer, 
sheep, goats, dogs and foxes, and numbers 
of ornaments, weapons, utensils of wood, 
bone, stone, bronze and iron were mingled 
together. 

The structure consisted of oak piles mor- 
tised together and laid on the bottom of the 
lake, and strengthened w4th cross beams. 

The ancient annals of Ireland relate that 
this island was burned by a hostile chief in 
848 and the dwellings plundered and pulled 
down by Norse pirates in 933. 

Ancient monuments, such as Cairns, 
Cromlechs, Sepulchral Mounds, Pillars, Obe- 
lisks, Pyramids, Archs, Brasses, Tombs, 
Stufas and Mausoleums are often pointed to 
as evidences of man's high antiquity. Le 
Conte, in his Geology (page 24) says that : 



— 365 — 

" On the flood-plain of the Nile stand the 
oldest monnments of civilization in the 
world. '^ The statne of Rameses II, which 
has been covered abont the base with sedi- 
ment nine feet deep he calculates to be 3,000 
years old. 

Concerning the length of time that elapsed 
since the beginning of the stone age, there 
can be but the merest and most unreliable 
conjectures. The three conditions of man 
represented b\' the stone, bronze and iron 
ages have alwaj'S co-existed side by side 
upon the earth. There has always been the 
highest civilization and the lowest barbar- 
ism. 

In mau}^ countries the three ages have 
existed together and in others they slowly 
graduated one into the other without the 
preceding ones disappearing. In PoWnesia, 
Central and Southern Africa, America — ex- 
cept Peru and Mexico, the people moved 
directly from the Stone to the Iron age 
without passing through the Bronze. 

When America was discovered, the native 
tribes were still in the stone age. So that 
it would be the sheerest folly to undertake 
to give any figures for man's antiquity 
taken from these ages. 

Many contend that the bones of extinct 
animals found mingled Vv^th the implements 
of the stone age point to a high antiquity. 



-366 — 

The animals living in the early stone age 
and since extinct, were the hairy mammoth, 
woolly rhinoceros and the hippopotamns. 
For all that is known to the contrary these 
animals may have become extinct very 
suddenly or by slow degrees after long ages. 
There is no certainty in the matter and so 
no criterion to accurately judge by. 

The Moa (Dinormis) of New Zealand, the 
Dodo and Solitaire of the Mauritius in the 
Indian Ocean, the ^pyornis of Madagascar, 
and other species have become extinct in very 
recent times and very suddenly. The Ry- 
tina of Siberia became extinct in the last 
century and the great Auk of the North Sea 
were last seen in 1844. 

It is well known that the American Buf- 
falo is rapidly passing away before our eyes. 

The extermination of animal species af- 
ford then no data for reliable figures. 

The finding of human skeletons furnishes 
no data more reliable. In the first place 
their number is so extraordinarily small 
that nothing can be generalized from them. 

In the cataclysms and inundations always 
so frequent, they may have been washed 
into the caves wherein they have been found 
and mingled with bones of the older animal 
species. That they were encrusted with 
stalagmite, adds nothing, as this process is 
sometimes slow and sometimes rapid. Thus 



— 367 — 

for instance, Lyell thinks that the famons 
skeleton found in 1857 in the Neanderthal 
Cave, near Diisseldorf, may have been 
washed in. 

The few remains of ancient human races 
unearthed have been mostly confined to a 
small radius in Europe. 

The human finds in America have mostly 
proven hoaxes upon close examination. 
The human footprints found in a rock near 
St. Louis were simpl}^ Indian carvings. 
The human skeletons discovered in the 
neighborhood of Guadalupe were proven to 
be of bodies buried but a few hundred years 
ago and afterwards petrified. The Find of 
Natchez and the fossil man of Florida were 
the baldest impositions. The Table Moun- 
tain and Calaveras skulls made a great stir 
among antiquarians for a short time. Pro- 
fessor Whitney, as late as 1879, claimed the 
Calaveras county cranium to be a genuine 
relic of Quaternary man. 

But the miner that perpetrated the joke 
at last confessed. A miner named Mattison 
produced the Calaveras skull in 1866 ; dug 
it out, he said, in his mine, 130 feet below 
the surface, from beneath the lava w^hich 
had flowed from a volcano in the pliocene 
period. 

The lava where the skull was ostensibly 
found had flowed out over that country eons 



— 368 — 

before the basaltic cap-covered Table Moun- 
tain itself had existed. The skull was 
coated with a deposit of gravel and sand 
that told of its lying at one time in a river- 
bed. The skull was broken in the strongest 
part, an evidence of the strength of the 
mighty torrent that had dashed it against 
the bowlders. 

A bored shell was found near by, sup- 
posably used as an ornament. At some time 
during the skull's wanderings, in the river's 
bed, or resting on its bank, a snail had 
crawled under the malar bone and died 
there. They found its shell there, and no 
such snail has lived since the volcanoes 
ceased pouring lava over California. 

The humor occasioned by these finds in 
mining districts is well expressed by Bret 
Harte in the following little poem : 

THE SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLAUS. 

I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James; 
I am not up to small deceit, or any sinful games; 
And I'll tell in simple language what I know about the row 
That broke up our society upon the Stanislaus. 

But first I would remark, that it is not a proper plan 
For any scientific gent to whale his fellow man ; 
And, if a member don't agree with his peculiar whim, 
To lay for that same member for to " put a head " on him. 

Now nothing could be finer or more beautiful to see, 
Than the first six months' proceedings of that same society, 
Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones 
That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones. 

Then Brown he read a paper and he reconstructed there, 
From those same bones, an animal that was extremely rare ; 



— 369 — 

And Jones then asked the Chair for a suspension of the rules, 
Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his lost 
mules. 

Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at fault, 
It seemed he had been trespassing on Jones' family vault ; 
He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown, 
And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town. 

Now I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent 
To say another is an ass, — at least to all intent; 
Nor should the individual who happens to be meant 
Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent. 

Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of order — when 
A chunk of old red sand stone took him in the abdomen, 
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor. 
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more. 

For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage 
In a warfare with the remnants of a palaeozoic age; 
And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a sin, 
Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson 
in. 

And this is all I have to say of these improper games. 
For I live at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James; 
And I've told in simple language what I know about the row 
That broke up our Society upon the Stanislaus. 

One remarkable feature connected with 
the Finds everywhere is that the skeletons 
of the supposed pre-historic man show him 
to be of as perfect races as those of to-day. 
On this subject Americans greatest geolo- 
gist, Dana, says: ^^ In the case of Man, the 
abruptness of transition is still more extra- 
ordinary, and especially because it occurs 
so near to the present time. In the highest 
Man-ape, the nearest allied of living species 
has the capacity of the cranium but thirty- 
four cubic inches; while the skeleton 
throughout is not fitted for an erect posi- 

24 



.- 370 — 

tion, and the fore-limbs are essential to 
locomotion: but, in the lowest of existing 
men, the capacity of the cranium is sixty- 
eight cubic inches, every bone is made and 
adjusted for the erect position, and the fore- 
limbs, instead of being required in locomo- 
tion, are wholly taken from the ground, and 
have other higher uses. Forty years since, 
Schmerling found fossil bones of ancient 
Man in Europe ; and for the past fifteen 
years active search has gone forward for the 
missing links ; and still the lowest yet 
found, — and this probably not the oldest, — 
has a cranium of seventy-five cubic inches 
capacity. Some of the oldest yet discovered 
have a large cranium and a high facial 
angle, although rude in implements and 
mode of life. No remains bear evidence to 
less perfect erectness of structure than in 
civilized man, or to any nearer approach to 
the Man-ape in essential characteristics. 

The existing Man-apes belong to lines 
that reached up to them as their ultimatum ; 
but, of that line which is supposed to have 
reached upward to Man, not the first link 
below the lowest level of existing Man has 
yet been found. This is the more extra- 
ordinary, in view of the fact that, from the 
lowest limit in existing men, there are all 
possible gradations up to the highest ; while, 
below that limit, there is an abrupt fall to 



the ape level, in which the cubic capacity of 
the brain is one half less. If the links ever 
existed, their annihilation without a relic 
is so extremely improbable that it may be 
pronounced impossible. Until some are 
found. Science cannot assert that they ever 
existed.'^ (Geology, page 603.) 



Chapter XXIII. 

THE DEIvUGE. 

There is scarcely any considerable race of 
men among whom there does not exist, in 
some form, the tradition of a great deluge, 
which destroyed all the human family except 
a favored few of their own progenitors. 

Humboldt, the great traveler and natural- 
ist, found this tradition general and still 
fresh among the tribes of the Orinoco. 
Herrera, the Spanish historian, relates that 
it is common among the Brazilians, the 
Peruvians, the Mechoachans and Cubans. 

The inhabitants of Tahiti, the Indians 
of Terra Firma and of the North American 
lakes held this tradition distinctly. The 
sacred records of the Parsees (doubtful), the 
Mohammedans and the Scandinavians con- 
tain traditions of the great flood. The 
Chinese, Hindoos and the peoples of the 



— 372 — 

isles of the Pacific also have similar tradi- 
tions. 

The Chaldean tradition of the deluge as 
related by Berosus and quoted by Josephus 
is strikingly similar to the Mosaic account. 

The Assyrian records and Grecian myth- 
ologies mention the great cataclysm. 

Catlin says that among 120 different 
tribes in North, South and Central America 
visited by him, not a single one exists that 
did not narrate to him a story of this great 
calamity to the infant race. The Egyptians 
alone (except probably in their hieroglyfics) 
seem to have no flood legend and its exist- 
ence is extremely vague among the Persians 
and the pagan portions of Africa. Other- 
wise the tradition may be said to be abso- 
lutely universal among all the peoples of 
the earth, each giving a local coloring. 

Of all the great misfortunes of the infancy 
of our race, this seems to have been the 
deepest and direst. It impressed the minds 
of the few survivors with such terror that 
its memory has survived all the vicissitudes 
of time. 

Many of the nations have preserved this 
tradition by means of pictures and hiero- 
glyphics. The old coins of classical Greece, 
the hieroglyphics of Egypt (probably), the 
sculptures of Hindustan, the picture-writ- 
ings of old Mexico and the recently discov- 



— 373 — 

ered Chaldean Cuneiform Inscriptions have 
all preserved sj^mbolically the great tra- 
dition. 

The learned commentators of the Mosaic 
narrative of the flood put forth two opinions 
principally concerning its territorial extent. 

Some contend that it was absolutely uni- 
versal over the whole globe, and others, and 
now the more numerous, claim that while it 
was universal as to mankind, it was only 
partial as to the earth. 

This question as to whether the deluge 
was universal or partial is entirely a prob- 
lem of physics and is no more moral in its 
bearing, than the questions that refer to 
the right figure or correct age of our planet 
or the true motions of the heavenly bodies. 
God designed to punish mankind for the 
sins of the race. His object was to destro}^ 
man, and his purpose could certainly be 
sufficiently accomplished whether he did it 
b}^ a partial or an universal flood. 

Against the absolute universality of the 
deluge as regards the whole globe, the 
following arguments are urged: Genesis 
gives very precisel}^ the form and dimen- 
sions of Noah's Ark. It w^as the shape of 
an oblong box, three stories high, with a 
roof of the ordinary angular form. The 
Ark measured three hundred cubits in 
length, fifty cubits in breadth, and thirty 



— 374 — 

cubits in height. Could all the animals in 
the world, by sevens and by pairs, with 
sufficient food to serve them for a twelve- 
month, be accommodated within this given 
space ? 

Sir Walter Raleigh, who was an experi- 
enced navigator, and a thoroughly compe- 
tent judge in such matters declared that in 
a vessel of the dimicnsions of Noah's Ark 
there would be ample room for eighty-nine 
distinct species of beasts, or, lest any should 
be omitted, for a hundred several kinds, and 
for the birds, and for meat to sustain them 
all. All the beasts might be kept in one 
story or room of the Ark, in their several 
cabins ; their meat in a second ; the birds 
and their provision in a third, with space to 
spare for Noah and his family, and all their 
necessaries. 

In Sir Walter Raleigh's time, the known 
animals of the world embraced only eight}^- 
nine species. But since his time the increase 
in discovered new species has been truty 
prodigious. A single centre of creation as 
known to zoologists to-day would embrace 
much more than these eighty-nine species. 
In Buffon's time, Raleigh's estimate of the 
number of species had to be doubled owing 
to new discoveries. Because of late discov- 
eries of new species of animals in America 
and Australia more particularly, and also in 



— oiO- 



otlier parts of the world, the number of 
distinct species now known and classified 
for the whole globe would reach 700,000. 

To get sevens and pairs of all these into 
a vessel of the dimensions of Noah's Ark, 
together with food sufficient for a twelve- 
month, to transport them to the Ark over 
oceans and impassable barriers of other 
kinds, and return them back again, after 
the waters subsided, to their own countries, 
would require miracles upon miracles, it is 
alleged. It seems to be after God's methods 
never to multiply miracles unnecessarily, 
one of his attributes being immutability. 
On this subject Chalmers well says : '^ It is 
remarkable that God is sparing of miracles, 
and seems to prefer the ordinary processes 
of nature, if equally effectual for the ac- 
complishment of his purposes. He might 
have saved Noah and his family by miracles ; 
but He is not prodigal of these, and so He 
appointed that an Ark should be made to 
bear up the living cargo which was to be 
kept alive on the surface of the waters ; and 
not only so, but He respects the laws of the 
animal physiology, as He did those of hy- 
drostatics, in that He put them by pairs 
into the Ark, male and female, to secure 
their transmission to after ages, and food 
was stored up to sustain them during their 
long confinement. In short. He dispenses 



— 376 — 

with miracles when these are not requisite 
for the fulfillment of his ends ; and He never 
dispenses with the ordinary means when 
these are fitted, and at the same time suf- 
ficient, for the occasion/' (Daily Scripture 
Readings, vol. I., p. lo.) 

Another difficult}^ is this. It is well 
known to geologists that every great conti- 
nent has its own peculiar fauna ; that the 
original centers of animal creation must 
have been many, and that the neighborhood 
of these centers must have been occupied 
by their pristine animals in ages long 
anterior to that of the Noachian Deluge, 
and that in the later geological ages they 
were preceded in them by animals of the 
same general type. '' The great continents,'' 
says Cuvier, ^^ contain species peculiar to 
each ; insomuch that whenever large coun- 
tries of this description have been discovered, 
which their situation had kept isolated from 
the rest of the world, the class of quadru- 
peds which they contained has been found 
extremely different from any that had ex- 
isted elsewhere. Thus, when the Spaniards 
first penetrated into South America, they 
did not find a single species of quadruped 
the same as any of Europe, Asia, or Africa. 
The puma, the jaguar, the tapir, the cabiai, 
the lama, the vicuna, the sloths, the arma- 
dilloes, the opossums, and the whole tribe 



— 377- 

of sapajoiis, were to them entirely new ani- 
mals, of which they had no idea. Similar 
circumstances have occurred in our own 
time, when the coasts of New Holland and 
the adjacent islands were first explored. 
The various species of kangaroo, phasco- 
lomys, dasyurus, and perameles, the flying 
phalangers, the ornithorynchi, and echidnse, 
have astonished naturalists by the strange- 
ness of their conformations, w^hich presented 
proportions contrary to all former rules, and 
were incapable of being arranged under any 
of the systems then in use.'' And Walworth 
(The Gentle Skeptic, page 305) says: ^^But 
further — and this seems to make the case 
conclusive against an universal deluge — it 
is evident that the same districts or provinces 
have been occupied by animals of the same 
general type as now at very remote periods 
of the world's history — periods which are 
represented b}^ the extinct species of the 
fossil world. The sloths and armadilloes 
peculiar to South America, the kangaroos 
of x^ustralia, and the wingless birds of New 
Zealand tread upon the very soil beneath 
which kindred but fossil forms of life lie 
sepulchred. It is a settled fact then, that 
during long periods of time, reaching far 
beyond all human history, creatures of one 
species have succeeded to other species of 
the same or a similar tj^pe within the same 



— 378 — 

areas. The conclusion against any universal 
deluge is evident, the argument being briefly 
this: Geology in concert with Zoology, 
shows that at periods long anterior to any 
supposable date of the Deluge, the distribu- 
tion of land animals upon the earth w^as 
much the same as novv . But, if the groups 
of the antediluvian world have been all 
broken up by an overwhelming and destroy- 
ing flood, it is unaccountable that the ancient 
districts should each have reclaimed anew 
its own peculiar fauna.'' 

Darwin (Origin of the Species, page 295) 
remarks as follows : '' Mr. Clift, many years 
ago, showed that the fossil mammals from 
the Australian caves w^ere closely allied to 
the living marsupials of that continent. In 
South America a similar relationship is 
manifest, even to an uneducated eye, in the 
gigantic pieces of armor, like those of the 
armadillo, found in several parts of La 
Plata ; and Professor Owen has shown, in 
the most striking manner, that most of the 
fossil mammals buried there in such num- 
bers, are related to South American types. 
The relationship is even more clearly seen 
in the wonderful collection of fossil bones 
made by MM. Lund and Clausen in the 
caves of Brazil. I was so much impressed 
w4th these facts, that I strongly insisted in 
1839 and 1845 ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^f ^^^ succession 



— 379 — 

of types' — on ^ this wonderful relationship 
between the dead and the living.' Professor 
Owen has subsequently extended the same 
generalization to the mammals of the Old 
World. We see the same law in this 
author's restoration of the extinct and gi- 
gantic birds of New Zealand. We see it 
also in the birds of the caves of Brazil. Mr. 
Woodward has shown that the same law 
holds good with sea shells." 

Again, without a special miracle, at the 
lowest calculation three-fourths of the vege- 
tation of the earth would have perished in a 
universal deluge that covered over the dry 
land for the space of a year. The very best 
botanists declare that the various vegetable 
regions bear witness to no such catastrophe. 
Either no effacing flood has passed over 
these regions or they were shielded from its 
destroying effects at the cost of miracle upon 
miracle, for they are still distinct and un- 
broken as of old. 

Again, in many parts of the world, as for 
instance Auvergne in France, and on the 
sides of Mount ^tna, there are cones of 
extinct or long-slumbering volcanoes, which, 
although more than three times the an- 
tiquity of the great flood, exhibit not the 
slightest marks of its denuding action. It 
is well known that the cones of volcanic 
craters are composed of loose incoherent 



— 380- 

scoriae and ashCvS, which, when exposed to 
the action of waves and currents, are com- 
pletely swept away in a very short time. 
As a striking example of the action of cur- 
rents upon volcanic cones, we may cite what 
happened to Graham's Island, which rose 
out of the sea in July, 183 1. 

In the succeeding August, this volcanic 
island had acquired a circumference of three 
miles and reached to a height of two hun- 
dred feet. In less than four months, the 
sea had washed it completely away, leaving 
only a shoal to mark the place where it 
once existed. 

The volcanic islands of Nyve and Sabrina 
were also carried away by oceanic currents 
in a few months after their sudden forma- 
tion. 

Lyell has estimated that no great flood 
could have possibly touched the volcanic 
cones on the flanks of ^tna for the past 
twelve thousand years. Neither has anj^ 
great flood passed over the crater cones of 
Auvergne for even a greater antiquity, since 
these cones are older than those of ^tna, 
as old, indeed, as the times of the Miocene. 
The crater cones on the sides of both these 
volcanoes retain in entire integrity their 
original shapes. Now certainly if the ^tna 
and Auvergne districts had been within the 
area of the Deluge, it is claimed that the 



— 381 — 

loose scoriae of their conic craters would 
have been completely washed away during 
the seven and one-half months that the 
waters had submerged the great mountain 
tops. 

The majority of the most learned com- 
mentators of the present time claim that the 
language of Moses relating to the great 
flood should be taken figuratively, rather 
than literally. The figure or trope of synec- 
doche is certainly frequently used in the 
Bible. Indeed this trope is one of the beau- 
ties of every literature. 

The Bible says that ''all the high hills 
which were under the whole heavens were 
covered. '^ But the facts of astronomy, geol- 
ogy, and natural history seem to be irrecon- 
cilable with the supposition of a universal 
deluge, unless it be accompanied with the 
supposition of a series of the most stupen- 
dous miracles. Accordingly it is the opin- 
ion of the best Biblical critics of to-day, 
such as Nagelsbach, Edward Hitchcock, 
Taylor Lewis, J. J. S. Perowne, Dr. Strong 
and others that the human race at the time 
of the deluge occupied but a small portion 
of the earth's surface, lying mostly in the 
basin of the Buphrates and Tigris, that the 
deluge was confined to that region and that 
the Scriptural expression above quoted is to 
be taken in a limited signification. 



— 382- 

God intended to destroy the human race 
in punishment of sin. God had certainl}^ 
no motive in destroying the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms, for they had not in- 
curred his displeasure. God being immu- 
table, works only the miracles absolutely 
necessary to carry out his purpose. He 
is naturally adverse to working superflu- 
ous miracles. God could have fulfilled his 
purpose in destroying the human species 
in its early infancy, w^hen confined within 
narrow limits, without submerging the whole 
earth. 

The practice of putting the whole for a 
part has been quite common with the sacred 
writers. Thus, on the day of Pentecost the 
Bible says that Jews assembled at Jerusa- 
lem ^''out of every nation tmder heave7i ;^^ again 
^^that the Gospel was preached to every 
creahtre 2tnder heaven ;^^ also that the Queen 
of Sheba came to hear Solomon from ^^the 
uttermost parts of the earth ; '^ that God put 
the dread of the Israelites upon the nations 
that were ^'^ under the whole heavens ;^^ and 
^^that all countries came into Egypt to 
Joseph to buy corn." 

Any one of these passages point as strong- 
ly to imiversality as do those which refer to 
the flood which say that the ^^ waters pre- 
vailed exceedingly on the earth," so that 

all the high hills that were under the 



(( 



— 383 — 

whole heavens were covered/ or that ^ all 
flesh died that moved upon the earth. '^ 

The Scriptures themselves sometimes de- 
fine the limits of the metonymic passage. 
This happens for instance in the case of the 
assemblage of Jews on the day of Pentecost. 
The Scripture mentions the countries from 
which these Jews had come. They came 
really only from those countries in the 
neighborhood of Judea, as far as Italy on 
one side and the Persian Gulf on the other, 
an area not equal to one-fiftieth of the whole 
earth. 

Many of the passages are not explained 
and defined by Scripture. For the proper 
interpretation of the latter passages help 
must be sought from ancient history and 
geography. 

In determining the extent of the ^^alP' 
in the passage connected with the Queen of 
Sheba and " all the world '' taxed by Augus- 
tus, we must find out how much of the world 
had been discovered in Solomon^s time and 
the extent of the Roman Empire in that of 
Caesar. 

So that passages of the scriptures involv- 
ing questions of physical sciences must be 
in a great measure interpreted according to 
the discoveries of these sciences. Very dis- 
tinguished theologians as well as scientists 
have held that the Noachian deluge was 



— 384 — 

only partial. Poole says : " It is not to be 
supposed that the entire globe of the earth 
was covered with water ; w^here was the need 
of overwhelming those regions in which 
there were no human beings? '^ 

Stillingfleet says : "' The Flood was uni- 
versal as to mankind; but from thence fol- 
lows no necessity at all of asserting the 
universality of it as to the globe of the 
earth, unless it be sufficiently proved that the 
whole earth was peopled before the Flood, 
which I despair of ever seeing proved.'^ 

Dr. Pye Smith, Professor Hitchcock and 
other eminent scientists, as already stated, 
held the theory of a partial deluge. 

Even though the Deluge w^as a partial 
one, to Noah and his family in the Ark it 
would appear universal, for they would see 
only ocean exteilding from horizon to hori- 
zon and all the hills and mountains they 
knew would disappear beneath the waves. 

The true question, however, it ma}^ be 
remarked, concerning the universality or 
non-universality of the Flood is not whether 
or no Moses is to be believed in the matter, 
but whether or no we in reality understand 
Moses. 

Hugh Miller, " Little Red Sandstone, '^ is 
a strong advocate of a deluge partial as to 
extent, but universal as to mankind, and 
gives his opinion in this forcible manner : 



— 385 — 

^' The question is, whether we are to regard 
the passages in which he (Moses) describes 
the Flood as universal, as belonging to the 
very numerous metonymic texts of Script- 
ure in which a part — sometimes a not very 
large part — is described as the whole, or to 
regard them as strictly and severely literal. 
Or, in other words, whether we are, with 
learned and solid divines of the olden time, 
such as Poole and Stillingfleet, and with 
many ingenious and accomplished divines 
of the passing age, such as the late Dr. Pye 
Smith and the Rev. Professor Hitchcock, to 
regard these passages as merely metonymic ; 
or, with Drs. Hamilton and Kitto, to regard 
them as strict^ literal, and to call up in 
support of the literal reading an amount of 
supposititious miracle, compared with which 
all the recorded miracles of the Old and 
New Testaments sink into insignificance. 
The controversy does not lie between Moses 
and the naturalists, but between the readings 
of theologians such as Mathew Poole and 
Stillingfleet on the one hand, and the ^^ead- 
ings of theologians such as Drs, Hamilton 
and Kitto on the other. And finding all 
natural science arrayed against the con- 
clusions of the one class, and in favor of 
those of the other, and believing further, 
that there has been always such a marked 
economy shown in the exercise of miracu- 

25 



- 386 - 

lous powers, that there has never been more 
of miracle employed in any one of the dis- 
pensations than was needed, I mnst hold 
that the theologians who believe that the 
Deluge was but co-extensive with the moral 
purpose which it served are more in the 
right, and may be more safely followed, 
than the theologians who hold that it ex- 
tended greatly further than was necessary. 
It is not with Moses or the truth of revela- 
tion that our controversy lies, but with the 
opponents of Stillingfleet and of Poole.'' 
(Testimony of the Rocks, page 308.) 

Miller ventures the following theory of 
the great cataclysm: ^^ There is a remark- 
able portion of the globe, chiefly in the 
Asiatic continent, though it extends into 
Europe, and which is nearly equal to all 
Europe in area, whose rivers (some of them, 
such as the Volga, the Oural, the Sihon, 
the Kour, and the Amoo, of great size) do 
not fall into the ocean, or into any of the 
many seas which communicate with it. 
They are, on the contrary, all turned inwards^ 
if I may so express myself; losing them- 
selves, in the eastern parts of the tract, in 
the lakes of a rainless district, in which they 
supply but the waste of evaporation, and 
falling, in the western parts, into seas such 
as the Caspian and the Aral. In this region 
there are extensive districts still under the 



— 387 — 

level of the ocean. The shore-line of the 
Caspian, for instance, is rather more than 
eighty-three feet beneath that of the Black 
Sea; and some of the great flat steppes 
which spread out around it, such as what is 
known as the Steppe of Astracan, have a 
mean level of about thirty feet beneath that 
of the Baltic. 

Were there a trench-like strip of country 
that communicated between the Caspian and 
the Gulf of Finland to be depressed beneath 
the level of the latter sea, it would so open 
the fountains of the great deep as to lay under 
water an extensive and populous region, 
containing the cities of Astracan, and As- 
trabad, and many other towns and villages. 
Now is it unworthy of remark, surely, that 
one of the depressed steppes of this peculiar 
region is known as the ^^Low Steppe of the 
Caucasus," and forms no inconsiderable 
portion of the great recognized centre of the 
human family. The Mount Ararat on 
which, according to many of our commenta- 
tors, the ark rested, rises immediately on 
the western edge of this great hollow; the 
Mount Ararat selected as the scene of that 
event by Sir Walter Raleigh, certainly not 
without some show of reason, lies far within 
it. . . . With the known facts, then, regard- 
ing this depressed Asiatic region before us, 
let us see whether we cannot originate a 



— 388 — 

theory of the Deluge free from at least the 
palpable monstrosities of the older ones. 
Let us suppose that the human family, still 
amounting to several millions, though great- 
ly reduced by exterminating wars and ex- 
hausting vices, were congregated in that 
tract of country which, extending eastwards 
from the modern iVrarat to far beyond the 
Sea of Aral, includes the original Caucasian 
centre of the race ; let us suppose that, the 
hour of judgment having at length arrived, 
the land began gradually to sink, as the 
tract in the run of Cutch sank in the year 
1819, or as the tract in the southern part of 
North America known as the ^^sunk coun- 
try,'' sank in the year 182 1 : further, let us 
suppose that the depression took place 
slowly and equably for fort}^ days together, 
at the rate of about four hundred feet per 
day, — a rate not twice greater than at which 
the tide rises in the Straits of Magellan, and 
which would have rendered itself apparent 
as but a persistent inward flowing of the 
sea: let us yet farther suppose that, from 
mayhap some volcanic outbunst coincident 
with the depression, and an effect of the 
same deep-seated cause, the atmosphere was 
so affected, that heavy drenching rains con- 
tinued to descend during the whole time, 
and that, though they could contribute but 
little to the actual volume of the flood, — at 



— 389 — 

most only some five or six inches per day, — 
they at least seemed to constitute one of its 
main q^uses, and added greatly to its ter- 
rors, by swelling the rivers, and rushing 
downwards in torrents from the hills : the 
depression, which, by extending to the 
Euxine Sea and the Persian Gulf on the one 
hand, and to the Gulf of Finland on the 
other, would open up by three separate 
channels the fountains of the great deep, 
and which included, let us suppose, an area 
of about two thousand miles each way, 
would, at the end of the fortieth day, be 
sunk in its centre to the depth of sixteen 
thousand feet, — a depth sufficiently pro- 
found to bury the loftiest mountains of the 
district ; and yet, having a gradient of de- 
clination of but sixteen feet per mile, the 
contour of its hills and plains would remain 
apparently what they had been before, — the 
doomed inhabitants would see but the water 
rising along the mountain sides, and one 
refuge after another swept away, till the 
last witness of the scene would have per- 
ished, and the last hill-top would have dis- 
appeared. And when, after a hundred and 
fifty days had come and gone, the depressed 
hollow would have begun slowly to rise, and 
when, after the fifth month had passed, the 
ark would have grounded on the summit of 
Mount Ararat, all that could have been seen 



— 390 — 

from the upper window of the vessel would 
be simply a boundless sea, roughened by 
tides, now flowing outwards, with a 3;eversed 
course, towards the distant ocean, by the 
three great outlets which, during the period 
of depression, had given access to the waters. 
Noah would of course see that " the foun- 
tains of the deep were stopped/' and ^^the 
waters returning from off the earth con- 
tinually ; '' whether the Deluge had been par- 
tial or universal, he could neither see 'not 
know. (Testimony of the Rocks, p. 312.) 

A few commentators have hazarded the 
opinion that the Flood was not universal 
even regarding the human race. The}^ 
claim that only the inhabitants of the coun- 
tries known to Noah perished. They assert 
that Biblical chronology does not allow suf- 
ficient time since the Deluge for certain 
races such as the Mongolian and Ethiopian 
to have been derived from the family of 
Noah. 

But this objection need not be considered, 
since Scripture has established no exact or 
certain chronology. There is no definite 
time fixed by the Bible for the Flood. 
Biblical chronology, as has already been ex- 
plained, is amply elastic to allow plenty of 
time for all the races of man now existing 
on our globe to have been derived from the 
family of Noah. 



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